"GET BACK! YOU COULD GET YOUR ARM TORN OFF BY THE WRINGER!"

Or something like that...maybe it was "Get out of here!" Mom was always so fearful of any of us getting hurt by the wringer and wouldn't let us within 5 feet of her when she was actually running them through.

Was your Nan scared for you too?

My uncle actually did break his arm by getting it stuck in the wringer. My grandmother had one but I don't remember seeing it.

Ded, my 6-year old sister did the SAME THING - after being told to NOT put her fingers near the rollers, when Mom's back was turned, she did - bad move - broken wrist and elbow!

I remember the agitator could rip your arm out of its socket, too - I stuck my hand and arm down in the machine to push some sheets under the water - it sucked and twisted my arm until I thought it would break - luckily, I got it out or I'd be a one-armed bandit today!

Ah, such an old fashioned machine. My mother's had a spinner attached for a much more modern approach to washing clothes for 6 people weekly.

I do remember it. Mom told me about a woman who got her long hair caught in it...horrible.

I remember the agitator could rip your arm out of its socket, too
Yes! That is the wording Mom used.

I remember them well. My nephew, who was 11 mo. older than me, told his little sister, who was 11 mo. younger than me, to stick her hand in the wringer, and she did. My sister grabbed it and yanked it out....didn't hit the release. For the rest of her life, my niece had a deformed hand. It was frozen in a way that looked like she was giving someone the finger, for the rest of her life. I am sure it could have been taken care of, but we were poor and my sister was not exactly a doting mother.

My sister has scars on her fingers from sticking them in. My mom moved really fast to turn it off.

Wow, I didn't realize that so many of you had, or had near-accidents with them. I remember the metal release on the side of the rollers.

The next washer Nan got was the spin-washer. Remember those?
A compact machine with the washer on one side then you transferred them to the spinning compartment, right next to it. When I was first married i got one, and hooked it up to the kitchen tap.

My cousin Joyce was the same age as Mom, so she was like an "aunt" to me. She lived in the "country" on a working farm, with her husband and three kids, and she had a wringer washer just like the photo. Never saw it in action. She's now in her 80's and has a regular electric washer. She recently modernized and got a dishwasher for her kitchen. Her husband never allowed her to have one becsause they had their own well and he thought it would use up all the water. They also (tee-hee) didn't flush the toilet every time, just when something solid was added.

I was just a kid back then.....

I never got near my mother's but she did get her arm caught one time, I remember but no lasting damage.

I grew up with one and that is what I used for the first 6 years after I got married, 53 years ago tomorrow. Did all the baby diapers etc for two kids with that wringer washer. I did run my hand up to my thumb through the wringer when I was about 10. Tore the skin up a little at the base of the thumb, but no permanent damage.

I did get my hair in the wringer. I was a teenager, and knew when it grabbed it, and managed to pull it back while shutting down the wringer with the other hand. Could have been bad, but ended up with just needing to have my hair trimmed a bit. They are very dangerous.

My mother had a Thor like the one in the picture when I was little. I remember it well.

Helene

Yep, Mom had one, she got a new washer and dryer when I was 6 or 7 (early 70's). But before that she used one like this. And my younger sister got her fingers caught in the wringer once.

When I was 4 yrs old my mother was doing laundry with an old Maytag wringer washer and while she was putting clothes through the wringer the phone rang. When she went into the living room to answer the phone I got the silly idea to help Mom, so I pushed up a chair to stand on and I proceeded to feed clothes into the wringer, Well, you guessed it, I managed to get my right hand in the ringer, only before Mom could hear me hollering and come running to my rescue, my hand had gone through, followed by my arm and by the time Mom got there my shoulder was against the wringer with my whole arm protuding through.Some of the later model washers had a panic bar over the rollers so if you got caught in the wringer you could hit the bar and it would instantly stop the rotation & release the tension, but such was not the case on our machine.By the time that Mom got back to the machine my entire arm had got pulled through and there I was hanging from the wringer because it had literally pulled me about 4" or 5" above the chair I had stood on. Mom instantly shift the wringers out of gear, then she tried releasing the tension to get me out, but no such luck, the tension knob was stuck and she could not turn it, so she did the only thing left to do, she put the wringer in reverse and it slowly wound me out. Having no vehicle Mom then scooped me up in her arms and ran out in the street and flagged down a passing delivery van and asked him to take us to the hospital, which he did. On the way, he got stopped by a motorcycle cop for speeding and when he told the cop why, the cop says "Follow me" as we once again sped off to the hospital with the cop running lights and siren to clear our path. To this day I still have the scars between the ring finger and pinkie finger of my right hand where they had to give me 14 stitches and under my right armpit I have a 4" wide scar where the wringer had totally rubbed the skin off the underside of my arm.

Now while we are discussing the nastalgia of the past, perhaps some of you can remember when it was common to describe a angy woman by saying she acted like she got a "tit in the wriner".......LOL

Wow! I'm amazed at just how common it must have been for someone to get 'something' caught and injured in the wringer. I understand now why we weren't even allowed to be in the same room when it was being used. Thank you Mom.

I had one in my first apartment in the late 60's. It was free and worked quite well. I would fill it and then let it drain into the bathtub.
Don't remember what happened to it, but never had any trouble with it.

We had one. When I was about 5 my hair was down to my waist. One day I was standing next to the washer & I don't know what happened but I got my hair caught in the wringer. My Mom was close but the wringer had taken the hair up to my scalp. I was lucky nothing happened but some lost hair. I think the cloths got a lot cleaner in that washing machine

I had not just one,but 2 of them-from 1976 straight thru to 1985-then I got the little spinner washer,and shortly after that,the automatic

Guess you all can tell MY age, as I remember them all very well. I don't think Americans typically had those little spinner ones, but when we lived in Scotland we had them. OMG...they were little terrors, and one sheet at a time deals. Fun for sure.

My Mom had a square Maytag that had the panic bar. I don't ever remember getting caught in it but I remember getting a finger pinched every now and then. I think it was bought in 1963 and we used it up until 1985 when she got an automatic washer. My brother and I just sold the Maytag last year or the year before and it still worked. They were a work horse.
Kittywhiskers

I got one of those shown in the photo when my third boy arrived. I paid $15 to a neighbor and it fit perfecly in my apartment kitchen. What a blessing it was

GULP! What horror stories this thread has. EEEEEK! and they're all real...

I'm switching to read something happy now to erase terrible pictures in my mind...

nope. we didn't have one of those.

We had one in the basement for awhile when I was small, we were not to go near it. No accidents, so sorry for those that were hurt though.

My grandmother gave me hers when I married in '69. I washed baby diapers (and all our clothes) in it until we moved out of the apartment and into our 1st house (with a REAL washer!)2 years later. We had a small dryer in the bathroom.

My mother had one when I was young but she told me to NEVER go near it and being an obedient child I never did. I am 71.
{{!gwi}}
And after your horror stories I'm glad I didn't go near it.

Ours had a double tub (two agitators) one for wash and one for rinse water. Must have been the fancy model :-) No one in my family ever got caught in either the wringer or the agitator so far as I remember.

Can't say I have even seen one up close. The women in my family must have exchanged them ASAP. I am in my 5th decade so one could assume my grandmother would have used one. I come from very intelligent stock!!

My grandmother gave me hers when I married in '69. I washed baby diapers (and all our clothes) in it until we moved out of the apartment and into our 1st house (with a REAL washer!)2 years later. We had a small dryer in the bathroom. There was an electric washer and dryer in the apartment complex to use for a fee, but roaches running around there made me use the wringer.

Yep. I remember washers like that one. We did not have a motor driven machine. We did it all by hand. One year, we did have a hand driven machine. It was my job to supply the manual power - made me tired on wash day. We had a hand powered wringer. Electricity came to our farm in 1947; after that date, we got an electric driven machine.

Before electric power, our neighbor had a Maytag powered by a cantankerous gasoline engine. Her house was 1/4 mile from ours, but we could hear that maytag motor putting away (or could hear her swearing at the motor) and knew it was wash day at her house. Her wringer had a release bar positioned such that if you got pulled toward the rollers, you'd hit the bar and the mechnaism would pop open thus releasing roller pressure and disassembling the drive gears. Long hair was another matter, however. If you were unfortunate enough, your hair would wind around the roller making it tough to untangle. If you saw a female child in town with a very bad haircut, you could bet it was a wringer incident. Some mothers in my neighborhood after warning their children about the hazards of the wringer would simply cut the hair to release them and to make an object lesson.