If you’ve ever tried wringing out a sopping wet beach towel, you know how much strength it takes.

Well imagine the biceps Grandma Magelli and Aunt Rose developed in the 1920’s. On Mondays and Fridays, they washed all the family’s clothes — including Grandpa’s pitch black, coal-dust-covered “pit clothes.”

Undoubtedly, those were left until after all the other garments, sheets and towels were done.

Grandma started the ritual at 4 a.m. She’d trek two and half blocks away to fill copper boilers with steaming, soft water from the #3 coal mine’s tap.

Then she’d haul the heavy load home in a wagon.

Before sunrise, she’d roust Aunt Rose out of bed and they’d set to work.

“She’d take one tub and I’d take the other,” Aunt Rose said. “Over a washboard, Grandma would soap up the laundry. She used a dark orange bar of Fels-Naptha. She wouldn’t use anything else.”

After two rinses in two successive wash tubs, the clothes were wrung out and hung on clotheslines to dry.

In bad weather, the operation moved indoors to Grandma and Grandpa’s basement.

“Luckily, Uncle Angel bought Grandma an electric washer after the twins were born,” Aunt Rose said.

Remembering the toil evoked a little prayer.  “Thank you, Lord. I’m over that!” said Aunt Rose, then 94.