Well, my friends, only recently have I bit the bullet by turning on my fuel oil furnace. In January, I prided myself by heating my entire house with nothing but wood. I could comfortably live at 50 degrees, knowing that my fuel was free. But, even a brand new wood furnace only keeps the chill out of a three-story brick house for so long, and I have responded by cranking my thermostat up to a balmy 58 degrees. After five months, I am sick of being cold.
I inherited this chilly-house lifestyle from my grandmother who, even in her later years, never cranked the thermostat. She kept her house only as warm as what the wood furnace would heat, probably because as a child my grandmother had no fuel oil furnace. For her, winter heat came from a pot-bellied stove that ran off wood or coal, and certainly did not circulate warm air throughout the house. This lifestyle was reality for my grandmother, and is the subject of my current series of articles.
For someone born during the 1920s in Wisconsin, childhood daily chores may include hand-milking cows, gathering eggs and hauling wood. Even during the summer, wood had to be carried into the house, as there were no electric stoves and certainly no water-heaters. My uncle Daryl remembers the kitchen being "ungodly hot" during the summer, as a piping fire needed to be maintained for cooking.
During the winter months, a novelty such as cranking the thermostat to 58 degrees simply did not exist. Houses were equipped with a small stove, which provided heat only to the immediate area. From this stove, a chimney ran vertically through the ceiling, providing minimal heat to the room above. The stove either could burn wood, which was readily available on a farm, or coal, which could be purchased in bulk in Monroe at the Farm Bureau.
My aunt Marie remembers going to get coal, a job she was not particularly fond of.
"It was such a dirty job - we'd drive to town and haul back a load."
Coal was an extremely dirty fuel to use for heat. A coal fire stinks, and will belch rotten soot into the air. During Marie's childhood, since everyone in town burned coal, it only took a day for the city to turn black and sooty. "Monroe only stayed white for a day or two because of all the coal smoke," remembers Marie.
Different people have different memories of Wisconsin's cold months. My friend Ken was born in 1924 and grew up on a farm about 40 miles north of Green Bay. His family farm included several hundred chickens, 25 to 30 cows, and two acres of green beans, which "seemed like 10 acres since we always had to pick them." When snow fell, a great source of entertainment came in the form of a one-horse sleigh. As I talked with Ken over lunch one day, he sat back and smiled at the memory: the kids would hitch the horse to the sleigh, and drove all over the neighborhood. They cut across fences and picked up neighbors who wanted a ride. "We'd have a crowd of people running along, following us." The horse-drawn sleigh would travel as far as five or six miles from home on a good run so that Ken could "go look at girls."
In addition to the sleigh, Ken's father owned a 1926 Dodge that had "big steel disc wheels and would hardly start in the winter." To get it going on a cold morning, the car was hooked to the "1-lunger" pump engine that supplied water to the barn.
Elsewhere, winter entertainment was a unique and innovative enterprise. My friend Jim was born in 1924 and grew up in Madison, on the east side. For fun, he built an iceboat and would sail across frozen Lake Mendota. An iceboat consisted of speed runners and a sail, which caught the wind and blew the boat across the ice. This was a common activity; Jim recalls countless iceboats in Madison, with even a special pier dedicated to housing the crafts.
Jim's father worked at Northwestern Roundhouse, fixing engines. He owned a 1930 Model A, which was set on blocks during winter because it "never started." Jim's father eventually bought a 1937 Chevy and became stranded during an unusually large snowfall shortly after World War II. In order to get his father home, Jim put chains on the tires of his car and drove across Madison with two brothers.
At about the same time Jim was cruising across the Madison lakes on his iceboat and Ken was enjoying his one-horse sleigh, a young girl named Carol was growing up on a farm between Winslow and Orangeville. She was born in 1923 to a family of three sisters and one brother, "who died of pneumonia when he was 6 months old." Carol almost didn't make it herself - her grandmother came to the United States from Switzerland as a 2-year-old baby. On the trans-Atlantic voyage, Carol's young grandmother became ill, and the sailors wanted to throw the baby overboard. The baby's mother - Carol's great-grandmother - refused, and the baby lived to be 90 years old.
Like my Aunt Marie and Uncle Daryl, Carol remembers the "big snowstorm" of 1936, when she walked to and from school on top of fence posts, "not knowing they were there."
Indeed, inclement weather was rarely a deterrent from holding classes. A severe storm simply meant that Ken might actually get a ride to school, rather than having to walk the two miles. This was a time when one teacher taught up to 30 kids of all ages and grades in one room. This was a time when one teacher taught all subjects, and may actually produce a handgun as a reminder to the kids to behave.
Tune in next week.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes
a weekly column for Friday editions of
the Times. He can be reached
at dwegs@tds.net.
I inherited this chilly-house lifestyle from my grandmother who, even in her later years, never cranked the thermostat. She kept her house only as warm as what the wood furnace would heat, probably because as a child my grandmother had no fuel oil furnace. For her, winter heat came from a pot-bellied stove that ran off wood or coal, and certainly did not circulate warm air throughout the house. This lifestyle was reality for my grandmother, and is the subject of my current series of articles.
For someone born during the 1920s in Wisconsin, childhood daily chores may include hand-milking cows, gathering eggs and hauling wood. Even during the summer, wood had to be carried into the house, as there were no electric stoves and certainly no water-heaters. My uncle Daryl remembers the kitchen being "ungodly hot" during the summer, as a piping fire needed to be maintained for cooking.
During the winter months, a novelty such as cranking the thermostat to 58 degrees simply did not exist. Houses were equipped with a small stove, which provided heat only to the immediate area. From this stove, a chimney ran vertically through the ceiling, providing minimal heat to the room above. The stove either could burn wood, which was readily available on a farm, or coal, which could be purchased in bulk in Monroe at the Farm Bureau.
My aunt Marie remembers going to get coal, a job she was not particularly fond of.
"It was such a dirty job - we'd drive to town and haul back a load."
Coal was an extremely dirty fuel to use for heat. A coal fire stinks, and will belch rotten soot into the air. During Marie's childhood, since everyone in town burned coal, it only took a day for the city to turn black and sooty. "Monroe only stayed white for a day or two because of all the coal smoke," remembers Marie.
Different people have different memories of Wisconsin's cold months. My friend Ken was born in 1924 and grew up on a farm about 40 miles north of Green Bay. His family farm included several hundred chickens, 25 to 30 cows, and two acres of green beans, which "seemed like 10 acres since we always had to pick them." When snow fell, a great source of entertainment came in the form of a one-horse sleigh. As I talked with Ken over lunch one day, he sat back and smiled at the memory: the kids would hitch the horse to the sleigh, and drove all over the neighborhood. They cut across fences and picked up neighbors who wanted a ride. "We'd have a crowd of people running along, following us." The horse-drawn sleigh would travel as far as five or six miles from home on a good run so that Ken could "go look at girls."
In addition to the sleigh, Ken's father owned a 1926 Dodge that had "big steel disc wheels and would hardly start in the winter." To get it going on a cold morning, the car was hooked to the "1-lunger" pump engine that supplied water to the barn.
Elsewhere, winter entertainment was a unique and innovative enterprise. My friend Jim was born in 1924 and grew up in Madison, on the east side. For fun, he built an iceboat and would sail across frozen Lake Mendota. An iceboat consisted of speed runners and a sail, which caught the wind and blew the boat across the ice. This was a common activity; Jim recalls countless iceboats in Madison, with even a special pier dedicated to housing the crafts.
Jim's father worked at Northwestern Roundhouse, fixing engines. He owned a 1930 Model A, which was set on blocks during winter because it "never started." Jim's father eventually bought a 1937 Chevy and became stranded during an unusually large snowfall shortly after World War II. In order to get his father home, Jim put chains on the tires of his car and drove across Madison with two brothers.
At about the same time Jim was cruising across the Madison lakes on his iceboat and Ken was enjoying his one-horse sleigh, a young girl named Carol was growing up on a farm between Winslow and Orangeville. She was born in 1923 to a family of three sisters and one brother, "who died of pneumonia when he was 6 months old." Carol almost didn't make it herself - her grandmother came to the United States from Switzerland as a 2-year-old baby. On the trans-Atlantic voyage, Carol's young grandmother became ill, and the sailors wanted to throw the baby overboard. The baby's mother - Carol's great-grandmother - refused, and the baby lived to be 90 years old.
Like my Aunt Marie and Uncle Daryl, Carol remembers the "big snowstorm" of 1936, when she walked to and from school on top of fence posts, "not knowing they were there."
Indeed, inclement weather was rarely a deterrent from holding classes. A severe storm simply meant that Ken might actually get a ride to school, rather than having to walk the two miles. This was a time when one teacher taught up to 30 kids of all ages and grades in one room. This was a time when one teacher taught all subjects, and may actually produce a handgun as a reminder to the kids to behave.
Tune in next week.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes
a weekly column for Friday editions of
the Times. He can be reached
at dwegs@tds.net.
