What Was the first vintage washer you remember seeing or started up as a child

[pierreandreply4]

hello to all aw members i don't know if such a thread or topic was made but what was the first washer dryer set you remember seeing or started up as a child?

for me the washer dryer set i remember as a child and started up was this set

And i remember my grandmother set as well

for me inglis whirlpool superb

my grandmother set inglis whirlpool liberator push to start washer with dryer (*pic number 2 for picture).

my godmother harvest gold inglis liberator washer and dryer

1 of my aunts viking washer and dryer see picture number3

 

[pierreandreply4]

pic number 2 my grandmother 's dryer

 

[pierreandreply4]

my aunt viking washer dryer set

last pic that i remember

 

[labboy]

1974 Avocado Green Kenmore W/D

My parents had a matching 1974 avocado green Kenmore set. I took the pump out of the washer for fun (much to my mother's dismay) when I was ten. It worked when I was done putting it back together! The washer is still in operation at some rental property my parents own.

 

[paulc]

My Mums.....

1967 Hotpoint Supermatic and my Aunty's Indesit L5....the L5 made me fall in love with automatic washing!

 

[3beltwesty]

1947 Westinghouse FL

 

[3beltwesty]

1947 Westinghouse FL

 

[turquoisedude]

I remember a 1955 Whirlpool wringer as the first. It was ironic, because we had a 1962 or 1963 GE V12 Filter-Flow washer and matching dryer! The house where we lived at the time had plumbing that would make the Ogden laundry room look like a professional installation and wiring that rivalled the 'plug board' in the Douglas' kitchen in Green Acres!
That Viking washer is exactly like the last vintage washer I had in the house in the Laurentians in the early 2000's!!

 

[washernoob]

Well in the first house I lived in until I was about 2-3, we had a real large sink in the basement with a wringer washer next to it. Im sure the wringer was somehow connected to the sink. Wether it was by a water hose or drain. The house was built in the late 50s early 60s.

Thats really my first washer experience. I know it was a square tub machine, and I was always afraid of it because it didn't have a lid, and the big black agitator scared me!

We didnt use it. My mom had another washer/washer dryer somewhere. I just cant recall where those were.
_______

The house after that was from 1918, but nothing special. Dont remember anything on the W/D
_________
In the next house, which was built in 1909, we had that dreadful cliché uber creepy unfinished basement. The floors in one side were white and black checkerboard style (I HATE THESE FLOORS!)

The cement walls were painted deep red. The main furnace was a monster that sat in a very large pit that was about a foot and a half down into the ground. Took up most the basement. I never dared once stick my foot down there!

Anyways on the other side was the washroom area. As creepy as it was, it was very cool. Two absolutely massive cast iron sinks that you could practically swim in. Lots of little faucets, and hoses to connect to washers. A very old wooden hand crank wringer was next to them. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if it were original to the house.
There was a gargantuan (to me at the time) 1940s fridge in there. I again never dared open it! The newer washer and dryer sat opposite the sinks, and next to the ??storm doors?? that led to a staircase up outside (for the life of me I cant think of what they were called. Maybe tornado doors or something. Very large!

The coolest house I have lived in was that one. I want to go back there now and explore it. The attic had a room built in the back, that was locked. We never did open it. There was a separate room behind the furnace pit with 2 large double doors, but you had to pass behind the furnace to get to it. My mom said it was an empty room with a coal burning furnace.

Oh the memories!

 

[3beltwesty]

When I grew up our 1947 machine was not vintage; it was just the washer we had that was older than me.

Thus my take then was a vintage washer was a gasoline powered maytag on a farm or wringer washer

 

[circlew]

The first washer was my Mom's 1955 Westinghouse Laundromat. The first dryer I remember belonged to one my neighbors - a late 50's Kenmore.

 

[cfz2882]

'70 hotpoint

1970 ST hotpoint in HG,clutch and sediment tube problems sent it to it's
grave in 1981...

 

[appnut]

The first asher was a 1955/1956 GE just like jetcone's, except ours did not have the Filter-flo.  I've learned over time here that ours was most likely a special model, had the higher-end model look but less expensive.  I think it as also purchased around the end of that model year or was "last years model" when purchased.  The GE replaced the Bendix I would leave alone when it was running.  The other "1st" washer I remember, several of my mom's friends had Frigidaire WO65 or WO65-2 models. 

 

[laundromat]

A 1955 Easy Rivera.

 

[norgeway]

1955

Frigidaire Pulsa Matic, it was replaced in 1969 with a Custom Deluxe Frigidaire Model WCDAN It lasted till the mid 80s.

 

[mathewhebailey0]

My parents I believe TOL Norge made early 1970's Wards avocado washer/dryer pair (the dryer having the fan behind the drum)

 

[bajaespuma]

I've told this story many times before on this site. When I was born in 1956 we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment in a complex that was built by Metropolitan Life insurance company for returning WWII veterans for their new families called Peter Cooper/Stuyvesant Town. It was a light and sunny apartment, very well made. Some of you may remember a couple of years ago the whole complex was sold to the Tishman/Spears company for 750 billion which still makes it the most expensive real estate sale ever.

 

Anyway, in Peter Cooper, where we had our apartment, you could have air conditioners but no washing machine. Everybody with young kids broke this rule because there were no laundromats in the buildings back then and a couple of savvy appliance/TV dealers in the neighborhood figured out how to deliver the forbidden machines in TV and console phonograph/radio cartons. You needed to make sure that your machine was on wheels so when they came to paint the apartment you could scoot the contraband into one of the closets or back rooms. You also needed to have a quiet machine and be careful not to produce a lot of suds because they would show up in your next-door neighbor's sinks and then the jig was up. No surprise that there were many Maytags in those apartments.

 

Ours was a Whirlpool and it was the first machine I ever saw do its thing. My entertainment was being put up in a high chair and watching the thing do its neutral drain (into the deep 2nd sink that doubled as my bathtub) and then go into its spin which, I'm told I used to refer to as the "ca-ca-ca-ca-ca" because of the noise the machine made as it spun. I think I've admitted this to John LeFever, but there will always be a place in my heart for Whirlpools (and maybe Kenmores) because of that machine. It was a rock bottom BOL, no water level control, no buttons whatsoever (there MAY have been a water temp toggleswitch next to the control dial, but I may be confabulating that with the Frigidaire WO-65 that this reminded me of. I think this was Whirlpool's 1957 24" Deluxe model, that I've seen some paperwork for from other members, but if anybody has any hard info on this machine, I'd love to see it. All I can tell you for sure is that it had a turquoise plastic control dial, and the agitator was NOT a surgilator but a straight-vaned unit that looked like a lot of the old Kenmore agitators but without the "hump" where the drive shaft was. It had that small black agitator cap that had those arch-shaped indentations. I also remember some kind of primitive rubber adapter that she would attach to the kitchen faucet, but it was just for one inlet hose that went to the machine. The drain hose was normal and separate.

 

[paulg]

1957 or 1958 HOTPOINT

Don't know the year. Hotpoint. Black straight-vane agitator. Red coffee-can filter that slipped over the agitator.
Full-width fluorescent lighted backsplash that didn't work. Pushbutton adjustments of something. Oddly, this website never showed a picture of this thing - you got close...
The unit was REALLY GOOD at walking across the room which scared the living daylights out of me. The unit went to Hotpoint heaven in the early seventies. Replaced by a Hotpoint Custom-Crafted-Silhouette-style washer of about 1974 vintage. Turquoise agitator that squirted water.

 

[mixfinder]

Oldy

Grandma had a gasoline powered Maytag from the 30's.  When mom got married grandma got a new Maytag wringer in 1947 and gave the old Maytag to mom.  It sat for years because we didn't have running water.  My most impressive memory was going to my great Aunt Rita's house and heard her talking about her new washer and dryer which were installed in a bedroom next to the bathroom.  It was New Year's day 1956 and she brought me in the cold unheated room  and started the washer while the family reunion raged on.  I watched an entire cycle.  It was a frog eye Sears with lighted dial and push buttons for water temp and level and a Roto Swirl.  I was forever changed.