Dear Jan,

Couple of weeks ago your mother involved me, as usual this time of year, in SPRING CLEANING, an annual rite that she takes on with a certain grim glee. The work was not arduous or demanding and my thoughts wandered back to SPRING CLEANING in the days when I was growing up. Now THAT was a major rite and a major undertaking. The reason was coal.

Coal heated our house and cooked our food, mostly, and provided hot water for washing up. Coal is black and readily gives off a fine black dust that floats on every errant air current, seeps through cracks and crevices, and adheres to every surface with which it comes in contact. Of course we only used the furnace in cold weather but the cookstove we used just about every day of the year so coal was always with us. There was a cellar under the main part of the house, that is, under the living room, front room, and the first floor bedroom off the living room where my parents slept, but not under the dining room or kitchen or of course the woodshed. The cellar was divided roughly in half by a stone wall that was part of the house foundation and pierced by a doorway with a stout wooden door. The far half was the Cold Cellar used for storing food and maybe some day I'll tell you about that.

The nearer half of the cellar, as you came down the stairs from the kitchen, was the Furnace Room. It was dominated, indeed occupied, by a large round metal furnace with ducts that branched off in various directions and carried warmed air to the living room, front room, dining room, and one duct wandered up an unused stairwell to the bathroom on the second floor. The kitchen, of course, was heated, sometimes too much so, by the cookstove. The three bedrooms on the upper floor were heated, at least in theory, by holes cut in the floor through the ceilings below and equipped with metal "registers" similar to the hot air heating outlets we have today. Grandma's bedroom had a round coal-oil (kerosene) space heater. The house was old, the doors and window didn't fit very tightly, there was no insulation in the walls or ceilings, and no storm windows or doors. Mornings after a winter storm, it was not uncommon to find a little snow drift on my window sills (inside) and a glass of water left on the night table might well have ice on it.

Down in the cellar, the area east of the furnace, perhaps a third of the room, was walled off with a wooden barrier about five feet high and that was the Coal Bin. The wooden wall was also a handy and much-used backstop for BBs, darts, and other missiles that were banished from the living spaces. Essential to the coal bin was an outside window - a standard basement window, maybe two feet wide, one foot high, and removable. When replenishment was necessary, Dad would contact one of the several coal dealers in our town, and in due course the coal truck would roll into our yard and stop at the window to the coal bin. Whoever was home and closest would zip down to the coal bin, remove the window, and stow it safely way. The coal man would unship his coal chute, a steel trough about the size and shape of a children's playground slide, stick one end through the cellar window, hook the other end onto his truck and with a large scoop shovel proceed to unload the ordered ton or ton-and-a-half of coal. The householder, meantime, would zip back up the stairs, close the cellar door as tightly as possible, and caulk the edges of the door with whatever rags or old newspapers were handy. With the coal unloaded, the coal man shipped his coal chute, collected his money, and drove off looking for all the world like an end man in a minstrel show. The householder would unstop the cellar door and, with a cloth over her/his head and another over her/his mouth and nose, zip down through the swirling coal dust and reinstall the cellar window. The cellar door would be kept shut and caulked as long as possible.

Next, the coal had to be reduced to the proper size for burning. Some chunks were probably a cubic foot and the proper size was about as big as two fists for the furnace and about as big as a large egg for the cookstove. Some folks broke up coal with a sledge hammer; we used the blunt end of an old axe. This was a chore for the boy (me), and it went on all year.

Another chore for the boy (me) was cleaning the cookstove each evening and "laying the fire" for the next day. The cookstove was a large, black, cast iron appliance with a round stove pipe connecting it to the chimney. Next to it stood the hot water tank with pipes that ran into and back out of the firebox in the cookstove. That was our source of hot water. There was also in the kitchen a two-burner oil (kerosene) stove. The cookstove handled the heavy duty cooking and baking and was used to prepare our main meal, called "dinner" that was served and eaten at noon. Dad's store was a five-minute walk away, our school about the same distance, so the whole family was normally present around the dining table for all meals. The oil stove was utilized for preparing breakfast and our evening meal, called "supper" which was a relatively light and simple repast. Except on special occasions the cookstove fire was not replenished after dinner and allowed to die out. When the dishes were washed and put away and the kitchen tidied up (and I would not be underfoot) I went to work.

First, the ashes were shaken down into the ash basket, taking care to be sure no live embers lingered, and the ash basket carried out the back door, through the woodshed, down the drive, and emptied on the ash pile north of the barn. On the return trip, I stopped in the woodshed for several sheets of old newspaper, a handful of kindling wood, and a half-pint of kerosene in an old coffee can. The newspaper was crumpled and placed in the firebox, the kindling laid in, a layer of coal spread on top, and the whole thing soaked with kerosene. A trip down to the coal bin to fill the coal bucket and the stove was ready for a fast start in the morning. In later years the old cookstove was replaced with an electric stove, but it didn't heat water, so alongside Dad installed a small black, cast iron "laundry stove" coal-fired, and "laying the fire" went on.

Tending the furnace was Dad's domain and nobody else better touch it, particularly boys. First thing in the morning, he searched among the ashes for embers that survived the night and built up the fire. He tended it again before he left for work, and when he came home at none, and in the evening, and the last thing before going to bed he "banked" the fire with ashes so it would last through the night. The residue consisted of ashes, cinders, and "clinkers." Ashes and cinders were shoveled out and into a steel container the size and shape of a bushel basket. "Clinkers" were large, grotesque, lumps of impurities in the coal that had melted and then solidified. Removing them from the firebox involved large steel hook, steel tongs, and heavy leather gloves.

The furnace served another purpose, too, it heated our soapstones. I mentioned that the second floor bedrooms were in effect unheated, but the soapstones compensated in a fair measure. "Soapstone" is a kind of naturally occurring stone that has, on the dressed surfaces, a sort of soapy feel and has a superior ability to absorb and retain heat. On cold nights, sometime after supper, Dad would open the furnace door and place the soapstones inside on the firebox apron. There they would sit and soak up heat until about a half hour before bedtime. One at a time they would be removed (with steel tongs and leather gloves). Each would be wrapped first in a half dozen layers of newspaper folded into a tidy package and secured with string. That package would be folded into a layer or two of cloth and fastened with safety pins. Then they would be rushed up to the bedroom and slid into the space between the feather comforters and hand-made quilts where we would shortly join them. I folded my clothes and put them in bed, too, pulled the covers over my head, and was snug as a bug in a rug. Those soapstones would stay warm all night.

I suppose we could have tightened up the house with caulking and such to reduce the heat leakage, but since neither the oil stove in the kitchen nor the oil heater in Grandma's bedroom was vented outside it was probably just as well that the windows and doors were rather loosely fit. Both heaters also produced a certain amount of soot that also settled wherever it landed.

Hence the need for SPRING CLEANING, which is what I started to tell you about. When the weather had warmed and the furnace shut down for the summer, Mother and Grandma, sometimes aided by one or more aunts, and boys outside of school hours, set at it. Our window "treatment" as the decorator magazines call it, consisted of white lace curtains (no drapes). These were taken down, measured, washed, wrung out, and "stretched" to dry. The curtain stretcher was a rectangular wooden framework, nominally perhaps four feet by eight feet in size but adjustable in both dimensions. All four of the wooden members were lined along the inner edge with a row of sharp steel pins. In use, it was adjusted to the proper size, either stood on edge or laid across four dining room chairs, and the damp curtain stretched by impaling all four edges on the sharp steel pins. Those pins were about a half inch long and spaced about three-fourths of an inch apart, just the right spacing so that when you were carefully hooking the curtain over one, the next one leaned over and jabbed your finger, and woe unto him/her who got blood spots on the freshly washed white curtain. I early gained a deep and abiding distrust of curtain stretchers.

Our floor coverings were rugs (no carpeting), and these were rolled up and carried outdoors, there to be draped over a clothesline held up with extra wood props and soundly beaten. Rug beaters are usually paddle-shaped affairs made of heavy steel wire, sort of like a large flat whisk. Applied to the rugs with verve and vigor they really made the dirt fly. The longer and harder you beat them the cleaner they became, and the beaters (boys) were encouraged to lay on with a will.

The walls and ceilings of all the rooms were papered and all of that wall paper had to be cleaned. For this we used commercial wall paper cleaner that came in a can and looked like pink putty. You gouged out a handful, kneaded it to a biscuit shape, and wiped. It was amazing how much dirt that stuff picked up. When the wiping surface became too dirty, you kneaded it some more to expose the clean part and continued wiping. Eventually the whole biscuit had to be discarded, and a fresh handful gouged out of the can, kneaded, etc., etc.

Windows were washed, as were floors, doors, and woodwork. Furniture was washed or vacuumed as appropriate. Lighting fixtures were taken down and washed and polished. Cupboards and closets were emptied and cleaned. Bedding and clothing was carried outdoors and hung on the clothesline to "air out."

In due time, the curtains were rehung, the rugs relaid, the furniture put back in proper location, and everyone sat back to admire the results. We didn't sit very long, however, because close upon us was the next major event of the year - PUTTING IN THE GARDEN. Maybe I'll tell you about that next.

Love,

Father

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