Someone just reminded me
of a time when nearly every home was heated with coal. Dempsey Ringo had a mill in the north end of
Clinton that bordered the Illinois Central RR near the depot and also sold
coal in an adjacent building. Coal was brought in by rail car and was
delivered by truck. We had what was
called a coal shed next to our driveway and the shed had an opening about six
or seven feet high and next to the drive where they would use a coal scoop to
pitch our order into the shed. As the
coal dwindled we, actually I, would scoop it into a better pile.
We used buckets with a lip
to carry coal into the house. The old Pot
Belly stove would have a bright red
spot on the side from the heat. It was
not efficient as a furnace as most of the heat produced went up the flue. The draft would be closed at night to save
coal and make it last the night and was stoked back up in the morning. We lived in a six room and bath house and had
to have two stoves. One was in the living
room that was actually used and one in the dining room which was also used. Then families ate together and actually
carried on conversations as they ate or listened together to the radio and
imagining being in the drama or comedy they listened to. I remember my dad was a rabid U. K. Wildcats
fan and we listened on the radio to Cawood Ledford announce the games. Cawood was a household word as he knew all the
players on both teams and vividly described who was where and what was happening
on the floor. Honestly sometimes I think
we saw it better through his eyes than we do now with close up cameras and HD TV.
Anyway back to our heating, I can still
remember waking in the morning and stepping onto a cold, cold floor and a
chilly air. I would run to the stove and
hold my hands near the side to warm them.
When my front side was warmed I turned around to warm the back side.
It was a few years later when we got Warm
Morning coal oil fired stove. Oil has to
be the most comfortable heat there is.
It maintains the humidity and eliminated the need to warm first one side
and then the other.
That still did not warm any of the space
under the house and in really cold weather the water would freeze and it was my
job to take rolled paper under the house and set one end on fire to warm the
pipes to thaw them. Now I know that this
was a terrible fire hazard and should never be done. Later we would wrap news papers around the
pipe, until about one inch thick, to insulate them and it worked well. Years later they would make the foam sleeves
available now.
I recall that with coal there was a stain
on the ceiling, walls and woodwork that had to be washed, painted or papered
often. Coal oil was only a little
better but still over time left a yellow deposit on any light surface. Each winter there would be many homes burn
from flu ash and oil buildup catching fire or an ember from a fireplace popping
out onto the floor. Burning wood was
even worse about building up in the flu.
People who burned wood usually let it dry well before using and it did
not build up as fast like it does now with many burning wood that has not
sufficiently dried.
In 1961-62 in Germany I noticed that most
people there still burned coal. Most of
theirs was not lump but was powder compressed into bricks. I wish I had taken a picture of one of the
many chimney sweeps that I saw. They all
wore top hats and tux with white shirt.
That was uniform for sweeps.
So many things have changed in all these
years. When I was about five or six I
was fascinated with the horse drawn, box covered, peddler wagon that came by my
grandparents about once or twice a week.
There were several stores but he would peddle goods all over town and I
imagine out in the county. He had pans,
, skillets and cistern buckets hanging on the outside and you could hear the
distinctive sound of them rattling on his wagon as it approached. He would sharpen knives and scissors and my
grandmother always had a job for him. He
also sold and sharpened shovels. I am
not positive but I believe his name was Atris (sp) Nichols.
Another wagon and team that I saw on a
regular basis was Uncle Jents or Jence Spicer with his rubber wheel horse drawn
wagon. He raised hogs and most people
would put table scraps, called slop, for him to pick up. He had barrels to haul it in. He was a great friend to just about everyone
who knew him. He was well known for
removing warts by just rubbing them. I
do not know if it was him or power of suggestion but it worked. Both Johnny Walker and I had him remove a
wart for us and in a couple of weeks it was gone. I did notice that he always rubbed the side of
his nose first so I wonder if the oil from his nose had something to do with
it. We kids loved to hang around him for
he was a great story teller and kept us listening. He was the local Uncle Remus for us.
That was a time, probably mid 40s that
most people had running water but some still had outhouses. My granddaddy had running water but like a
lot of folk then he thought it unsanitary to have an outhouse indoors. He had a two holer that he had to move frequently. My grandmother finally convinced him to put
a bath room in the house. He was still reluctant but he did it.
“No decent person would put the facility, as it was called, indoors.”
Who could forget the Continental Trailways
bus station where Dr. Canty has his dental practice located now. I believe the last to operate it was Tom
Billy Smith. He also had a bus to haul
workers to the USEC plant, or atomic plant as we called it then, while it was
under construction.
My family and the Smiths were close and
spent a lot of time together. I was
always amazed at Tom Billy getting worms for bait. He kept a spot by his shed wet and threw
coffee crumbs on the ground there.
He had a homemade electric
probe that he would plug into the outlet in the shed. I mean the ground would be alive with big
night crawlers in a minute. He only
juiced it for a short time and would get enough bait for days of fishing. My uncle would use two cane fish poles and
beat them on the ground rapidly. He did
this in low, wet bottom areas.
Supposedly it replicated the vibrations of thunder and they came to the
surface for moisture. He would sometimes
drive a 1” X 2” stake in the same kind of ground and rub it with another 1 X 2
with saw blade width notches in it for the same result. It worked for him but neither would work for
me.
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