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

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pierreandreply4

pierreandreply4

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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++3-24-2011-16-39-21.jpg
 
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.
 
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!!
 
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!
 
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
 
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. 
 
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.

bajaespuma++3-24-2011-19-15-29.jpg
 
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.
 
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.
 


1969 Frigidaire Jet Action Rollermatic Custom Deluxe in Avacado Green.  God how I wish we'd kept it.  Here is a picture of mine now that bears very near similarity to the one I grew up with.

joelippard++3-24-2011-21-20-48.jpg
 
A 1972 avocado Bradford washer & electric dryer set... They were probably small capacity, & I think made by Hamilton or Franklin & the washer even had a lint filter that sat on the agitator, while the dryer had a huge door-mounted lint screen (& somehow a WHITE door handle) but compared to a real Norge washer or dryer the resemblance to the design of either never came close...

They sat side by side in the house we lived in, in which they were bought when my dad worked at Grant's, while adjacent from one-another at the house I grew up in, each getting replaced by Maytags: a white one from 1978 replacing the dryer, and a 1978 white washer, then an almond 1992 washer (which I bought & had a lot of Large Cap. fancy features) before in I think 2006, a matching white Maytag top-of-the-line set finally came to be!

I remember a harvest gold Bradford dryer like ours in the vestibule of the Grant's store where mom & dad took me one night (& THAT had a white door handle, as well) and I remember him lifting me up to look through a window in the lid of a harvest gold washer, too--which I would be quite certain MIGHT have been a Frigidaire, but at GRANT'S????!!!!

-- Dave
 
first washer memories

My parents pretty basic Maytag toploader. They bought it(and matching dryer) months after getting married in 1974 so likely a '75 model. It had 3 temperature buttons on the left, three load size buttons on the right and the dial right in the middle. It also had a blank that said "automatic" between the dial and load size buttons. I know it was a blank as our neighbor had a similar Maytag but theirs had additional buttons there(I imagine speed). As a kid, I literally wore the lid switch out by opening and closing it so much. My dad just bypassed it rather than replace it so it would spin even with the lid open. How in the world did I not lose an arm!(maybe I knew even as a kid to keep my hands out of a spinning washer). That was a reliable, but noisy machine that never had a problem(aside from the worn out lid switch) and was still running in 1995 when it was replaced by a 90 Series Kenmore.
 
For me it would have to be my grandmothers 1958 WD-58 Frigidaire Pulsamatic washer...
 
Unimatic1140++8-3-2009-08-32-42.jpg

 
Unimatic1140++8-5-2009-07-20-57.jpg
 
The SECOND, THIRD, and So On...

My mom's first Maytag washer was also a basic model: 3 water levels, 3 temperatures...

2 cycles: Reg. & Permanent Press, of which she thought she was getting "gentler action" on the PP portion of the timer dial, which was white instead of the shiny metal on the better ones... But her machine was also really a 1-Speed; it also said "Automatic", where the "speed buttons" would really be...

The dryer, also a Maytag, was a bit higher up: it had a shiny metal knob for the timer, featuring Regular, Permanent Press and even an Air Fluff (which ran at only 15-Min., though I really believe the far-reach of the dial gave you 20!)

There were also a couple of Reg. Temp. and Low Temp. push-buttons, too...

I bought my mom an almond Maytag washer in 1992, even though there was really nothing wrong with her old one.... But this one boasted Hot/Warm, Hot/Cold Warm/Cold and Cold/Cold Wash/Rinse settings (No Warm/Warm, unfortunately)... It also had an infinite water level, bleach & fabric dispenser (the latter disp. was also on the old one) and 2 speeds...

A flood in the basement, I believe caused the fuse to blow, everytime the washer was used, however... But otherwise, a new lid switch was the only repair it ever needed (& possibly all the old one, too--along w/ the dryer needing an occasional drive belt)...

So in 2006, my mom purchased a new Maytag washer & dryer pair, this time the washer sporting a stainless steel tub! And gobs of other features, too...

-- Dave
 
Mom:Early Norege "Burpilator"Loved watching it as a child.Still trying to find one-large black bakelite agitator with the very large blades.
Stepmom-KN "pregnant Roto Swirl"
Grandmom-Pregnant KN Roto Swirl.Loved those too.finding machines that old in my area is a very tall order.and the Norge had the shiney metal lint dish.Liked seeing the lint balls form.
 
My first memory was of . . .

. . . a Maytag wringer.

Then we graduated to a Thor Automagic.

Next was a Maytag AMP which lasted something like 16 years.

Our neighbors had a Bendix bolt down and a GE dryer which was used only for towels.

Other neighbors had a Bendix Economat.

Jerry Gay
 
Our Inglis

The first vintage machines I remember was, as you've probably heard from me many times before, our early 60s Inglis Superb set. My earliest memories were my mom lifting me up so I can see it working, and I remember that tub full of sudsy water and that black agitator with the dome top going back and fourth. I remember all the clinks and clunks as the machine changed its cycles (obviously no shut-off pauses). I remember hearing that "ca-ca-ca-ca-ca" through its spin cycle, accompanied by the howling pump, which sounded to me a bit like the laundry tub pump after the tub was empty. (The laundry tub needed a pump to drain it when we were on septic tank, since it was below the sewer drain.) I also remember that hose spewing out rinse water and spun-out suds into the sump-pump, often causing that to turn on. It would also spit out a shot of water when the machine started agitating. As you may know, when a WP BD machine starts up, it would be in drain mode for a second before the wig-wag switches it into agitation. I also remember hearing that wig-wag ticking to the beat of the agitation, keeping that same beat throughout the drain and spin. And I remember the suds-return, which I thought was always the way it filled. My mom would turn on the machine, and the agitator would be oscillating in the empty tub. Then I would see the wash water come up through the bottom, then as it was rising above the agitator vanes, you'd hear a quiet "slish-slosh" becoming gradually louder and louder (with water spashing all over the place!).

And the dryer, that machine that made the random tapping noises. I remember the exhaust vent outside. I didn't know exactly what that vent was for at the time (until I was about 4 or 5), but it emitted the smell of laundry water, which gave me a bit of a clue. It was also quite loud, as I could hear it from a distance. The old impeller-type fan had the low-pitched tone that carried, unlike the high-pitched hamster-cage fans.
 

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