Aunt Mary's Memoirs: VII

The boys usually kept the woodbox filled and carried the scuttles of coal from the cellar for the fires. There was no heat in the house but the coal stoves, and we studied by the light of a kerosene lamp. Baths were in the large washtub placed on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, filled with hot water, then carried out and emptied after bathing. The privy was outdoors a short walk, and in the wintertime we must put on a coat to run out and back.
The kitchen always smelled good--a meal in progress or bread just baked. Mother would mix up a batch of dough almost every night just before retiring and the next day would bake it in the old coal-heated oven. She also made fresh butter from the churn smeared over a slice of still hot bread taken from the oven.