Laundering and Ironing for Soldiers and for Miners

Patience Loader Rozsa did the ironing for the Soldiers. Emma Carson took in laundry and ironing for the miners. Emma and her daughters would have used double-pointed irons like these.

Emma Partridge Carson. In 1875, she became John Carson's second wife.

Patience Loader Rozsa and her husband, Sgt. John Rozsa, did the job of military laundress at Camp Floyd. They were on Soapsuds Row, like this row at the camp. Patience mainly did the ironing for the soldiers.

The history of women working as laundresses in the Camp Floyd/Fairfield area starts in 1858 when the US army set up a camp. Patience Loader Rozsa's husband signed her up to be a military laundress, but when she said that she had never done that kind of work before, he did the laundry for the soldiers and she ironed.

When Emma Carson's husband died in 1895, she took in the laundry of the local miners to supplement her income as an innkeeper.