In 1949, my parents moved out of my paternal grandparent’s house in South Bend, Indiana, where they had lived since my father returned from WWII. They moved to a post-World War II housing development for young veteran’s families on what were then the outskirts of the city’s west side, between the Studebaker and Bendix industrial complexes. South Bend was an industrial town back then, a company town, and these were two of the biggest employers. Our house was a small, 2 bedroom, wood-frame house with a breezeway connecting the house and the one car garage. As more children arrived, my parents eventually turned the breezeway into a third bedroom.
We had a coal burning furnace throughout the 1950s. I'm relying on my memory here, which is always a crap shoot, but I remember it as large and imposing. In my mind's eye it is taller than my father. The furnace lived in the middle of the basement, and I could see the red hot coals when my parents fed it. We had cast iron pokers and shovels, and scoops my parents used to replenish the coal.
There was a small room in the basement that we called the coal bin. Up at ground level there was an opening big enough for a coal chute door that was opened from the outside for the "coal man" to deliver the coal from a truck once a year. When that happened, it was loud, dirty, and disruptive of normal routine. Of course that was very exciting for young children!
A world away now. Funny the things that come to mind as we age.
What a nice looking home, Colette! I bet your folks were so proud when they bought that!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it is still standing. So many of those type of homes have been knocked down and replaced by McMansions in my city.
It is still standing, as are all those old houses. They have not been kept up, though.
DeleteYes, that house looks very compact and comfortable. My memory goes only back to the early 1960s when we moved to a newly built housing estate and had oil fired central heating throughout. Early morning, my father would go down into the basement and set the dial according to what he thought the temperature would drop to.
ReplyDeleteOne year in the early 1070s during the world wide oil shortage, we switched to coal and my mother never stopped complaining about the dust.
Coal is dirty, no getting around that.
DeleteYou brought up another memory for me. In my family of seven children and two adults most of us were born in August or September. Two more were October and November and one was in July. I know how my parents kept warm.
ReplyDeleteHa!
DeleteMy Aunt and Uncle moved into a very similar house when he returned from the war. Theirs was in Parma, Ohio.
ReplyDeleteHouses are so much bigger now.
DeleteI can't imagine burning coal at home. That seems so alien to me. In Florida we always had electric heat, and my grandmother had an oil burner. (Though I think she USED to have coal, before I was born.)
ReplyDeleteIt was a long time ago.
DeleteLike many families, we didn't have central heating in the fifties, only a coal fire in the living room and paraffin heaters and gas fires in the bedrooms. My father would curse freely as he did the tedious work of getting the coal fire going and then emptying the ash afterwards.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting!
DeleteNow there's a completely new word for me - breezeway. And it only existed temporarily; it became a bedroom. What happens in a breezeway? I'm guessing. You've just washed your hair and there's not a dry towel in the house (Yes, yes; this is the US and I know it sounds like fantasy but, when in doubt, INVENT. It's what I'm doing. I'm a child of the Imagination Era. Pre-Nixon.).
DeleteStreaming with water, you stand in the breezeway facing two options - dry hair or extinction from double pneumonia. Which is twice as bad as simple, everyday, ordinary pneumonia.
You're lucky and your hair dries. But it sticks out horizontally and you look like a porcupine in a hurricane. But your friendly pharmacy sells you a special unguent which straightens you out. Ten dollars a shot but it's worth it. Straightened out literally. You're ready again for salaried employment.
Am I close? Nowhere near? So it's back to Invention College for me.
Please, puh-lease don't tell me what breezeways do. I'm having more fun not knowing.
You can see the breezeway in the picture, covered area between the garage and the house.
DeleteThank you for not explaining its function.
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