Keeping Warm
With the cost of natural gas and heating
oil increasing there is some discussion of using the old
coal burning heaters again. Back in the late thirties to
mid-fifties most homes in Fayetteville used coal for
heating. Each home had a coal pile in the backyard, a
coal-burning heater or coal-burning fireplace, a coal
bucket ( called a scuttle), and a small ash shovel to help
in the daily removal of ashes.
Each afternoon before dark, we would take the scuttle to
the pile and fill it up and cut some kindling to help start
a fire the next morning. The fire was usually allowed to
die at bedtime and started again the next morning. Mother
or Daddy usually used some kerosene along with the kindling
to quickly start the fire. We never considered the danger
of using kerosene and I don’t remember hearing of any
accidents with it.
Before we got out of bed the next morning, one member of
the family would get up and start the fire and quickly run
back to bed and get under the covers to wait for the chill
of the room to lessen.
When we lived in the house with Miss Jenny Farrar, we only
had three rooms: the living room, the bedroom and the
kitchen. We heated the living room with a small
coal-burning fireplace that had a grate to hold the burning
coal. We didn’t use this room every day. The kitchen was
heated in cooking. We had a small Rex heater in the
bedroom. It was set out in the room with a long stove pipe
to the chimney. Much of the heat for the room was provided
by the stove pipe, which would get very hot at times.
One morning Mother got up and started the fire. As the
stove pipe got hot she turned her back to it to warm a
little before going back to bed. She was wearing a loose
nightgown and the tail of it was accidentally ignited as it
hit the stove pipe. Frightened and in desperation she ran
and jumped in the bed with Daddy. He tried to smother out
the fire without much success so he used his hands to twist
the tail of the gown and put out the fire. His hands were
badly burned and he wore bandages on them for several days.
After that I never questioned his love for Mother.
When Daddy was in the army overseas during World War II our
funds were quite low. We received a check of ninety dollars
each month from the government because Daddy was in the
army and Mother worked as a telephone operator here in
Fayetteville. She would save a little each month to buy
coal for the winter. She usually bought it in the summer
time. Maybe it was cheaper then. She said it was because of
the availability of a special “soft” coal that burned very
well.
Redwine Brothers sold the coal. They had a huge coal pile
where Farmers and Merchants Bank was later located, across
from the Fife House. They also sold kerosene and Standard
gasoline to merchants in the county. I remember their
blue-green tank trucks. They had two with compartments that
let them transport kerosene and gasoline at the same time.
Kerosene was used in small kerosene heaters, in lamps and
in kerosene cooking stoves.