Getting Ready for Winter

Getting ready for winter involved many things including searching for clothes, canning, and preparing the house for the inevitable forces of winter. In our little town, winter meant several inches of snow which accumulated over the weeks into several feet of snow.

Winter clothes were pulled out of closets and boxes and tried on to see if they still fit. Holes were darned (Does anyone know how to do that yet?), or repaired on the electrified treddle sering machine (What a classic!). Mother took note of what was needed and these were given to us as Christmas gifts later. Boots, skates, hockey sticks & pucks were found, as well as the shovels.

I don't remember my mother canning anything but spiced crab apples, a delicacy at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will publish her recipe after this post. I must say, however, that here in Lancaster County, I have been unable to even FIND crab apples, let alone spice them. Mother always got hers from an orchard in Mifflin County. Now THERE is a good memory! The man there always gave us each a big juicy peach to eat right there at the orchard. Best peach of the season! Bushels of apples and peaches and pears were brought home and stored in the cellar.

To prepare the house for winter, my father was in charge of going around to each of the large, water-filled radiators and, using a special "key," he would let any unwanted air out of the system. I'm so glad I went around with him those many years ago, because that job falls to me in the house we have now. Same job, different type of radiator. Back then, the radiators had fins and a flat-top shallow cover. Nothing was supposed to be on those covers, but I remember things kept on every one of them. The long one in the dining room didn't have a cover, but we dried our wet scarves, hats and mittens on top and our boot toes beneath. Mother balanced her yeast dough for rolls and breads there also. What a wonderful smell permeated the house as the dough rose! And it was a nice warm place to sit and talk on the phone, provided it wasn't too hot!

After Daddy removed air from the radiators, his next chore was to start the furnace for the winter. I'm not sure what exactly that entailed, but ours was a coal furnace. I can still remember watching the big dump truck back into the alley beside our house. The man would set up a chute from the truck to the open window of the coal room in the cellar (Do people have cellars any more?). Then he would start shoveling the coal onto the chute and down it would slide. It was a very long and noisy task and coal dust was thick in the cellar, so I was not permitted down there until later. When I was a teenager, I was "permitted" to shovel coal into the furnace and to shovel ashes into a galvanized wash tub, which I then carried up the stone steps to the back porch and dumped down an unused cistern that we were attempting to fill up.

I know that not many people today have coal furnaces or understand the heavy lifting involved in keeping such a furnace fueled and functioning properly. But I'm really glad that I was "permitted" to do that for my parents. I feel as if I participated in a slice of old-time American culture. There were other chores I performed back then, that are no longer done by the majority of people. Today, I feel that I am a privileged person for having done these things!

Will my children and grandchildren feel privileged when they are my age??? Time will tell.