Do you remember

I don't know how many of you ever used a coal furnace to heat your home, but we did, mom would get up early while we were all snug in our beds, go to the basement and shake the old coals down, and shovel in a bunch of new coal, then come back to the kitchen, close the door, turn on the oven, put on a big pot to make oatmeal in, then since there were seven kids to feed, she would put at least a dozen pieces of bread on the rack in the oven and make toast, and she would never forget to watch to make sure when it was time to turn the bread over and then take out before it burnt. Now it's time to call upstairs and call out rise and shine, time to eat, we would all scurry down to the nice warm kitchen and eat oatmeal, cocoa and toast with mom's homemade jellies.  Then she would take the youngest over to the kitchen sink and wash us up to get ready for school or whatever, she had our clothes all laid out from the night before, those that could dress themselves did, the younger one's she took care of, all while the older ones were upstairs washing up, brushing teeth etc. and getting themselves dressed and making the beds.  All four girls wore long finger curls, so we would go to the kitchen sink one at a time and stand in front of mom while she would put her finger in a piece of our hair comb it around her finger, wet the comb and stroke it over and over our hair on her finger then when she pulled her finger out, walloh a finger curl, she made probablyabout ten curls in each head, then it was the boys turn, no long finger curls lol for them.  After she saw us out the door she took the little ones up stairs to our one and only bathroom and taught them how to brush their teeth and get herself dressed for the day, altho some mornings after she fixed the coal in the furnace she would dash off to church, walking 4 city blocks and be back in time to start the breakfast ritual. I still am amazed at that woman.

We didn't have lunch rooms at the school back then so we all came home for lunch, it was usually peanutbutter and jelly and some kind or fruit with a glass of milk, then stand at the sink for a touch up on the curls and comb over for the boys, then up to the bathroom to stand in line to brush our teeth and whatever else had to be done, off to school again, usually jumping rope in the middle of the street all the way, remember we walked 4 city blocks to school also, we went to Catholic school so the school and church were side by side, well not exactly, it was in a big square, on one street there was the church and rectory where the priest lived, then around the corner were two school buildings one for elementary, second for middle school, then around that corner was th gym and the custodians house, then around that corner was the nuns home and and entrance to our play yard and the side of the church,our play yard was asphalt and it was in the middle of the big square, I know I ramble, can you follow me?

Okay now it's time for supper, we ate that in the dinning room, at this meal eleven people sat down at excatly 6pm, seven kids, two maiden aunts, and mom and dad. We called it supper, we thought only the really rich people ate dinner, anyway it always consisted of meat, potatoes and two vegetables, and the first time we passed everything around, then said a blessing, the second time we had to say please pass the whatever, if there was anything left after that we could say excuse me and reach, no one could leave until we gave thanks and my dad left the table, now the fun begins, cleaning off the table everyone pitched, my aunts,mom and the three older kids, after the table was cleared mom and her sisters joined my dad and smaller ones in the living room, leaving the older to clean the dishes and the kitchen and we couldn't leave until one of the adults approved of the job we did, oh there was three, one washed, one dried, and one put thedishes away, now time to sit at the dinning room table and do our home work, after that we could lay on the floor in front of the radio and listen to maybe Red Skelton, different things on different nights. Now it's time to get ready for bed, remeber one bath room, we all were asleep the minute our heads hit the pillow can you imagine how my mom felt, because if fixing meals wasn't enough work, mondays she did the wash and hung it out to dry, tuesdays she ironed and patched the clothes and put them away, wednsday she did the shopping, I forget what she did on thursday and friday, but saturday we all cleaned the house, and it would take hours to tell you what that entailed so I'll leave it for another day, oh I forgot to say Sunday afternoon was our big meal and mom baked a cake or pie or something only on sunday did we get dessert.  Now I'll let you go.

Remember when you smile you may make another person smile!  gg