----- Original Message -----
From: Steven Holding <s.holding@c...>
To: <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 12:53 AM
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Green Marked Coal
> Pete
> You were deprived
> I am not that much younger then you but growing up on the farm in lower
> Michigan we had a huge wood shed on the back of the house. This just was
> for the kitchen stove. We had a fire 365 days of the year. Summers would
> just cook breakfast but other days each meal. We burned just wood in the
> furnace. So some nites got a little cool. All the wood came from
trimming
> or logging and went to the Wood Yard. An extension of the barnyard. Each
> summer when we had nothing else to do we would buzz wood. Cut it down to
> stove size with a Buzz Saw. This was an old saw mill blade run off the
> pulley on the tractor. Even though my family moved to Illinois I still
> spent every summer on the farm and got in on all the fun. One time in
> Scouts we were camping down near Plano and there was an old cook stove in
> the cabin we were using as an office. No one could figure why I was the
only
> one who could keep a fire going in it. My first job for the Railroad at
> the SheepYard in Montgomery we still had coal stoves two in the office.
One
> in the office and the other in the locker room. The Supt. House had a
coal
> fired boiler to heat his house and it was the nite shifts job to keep him
> warm. . Later while working for Uncle Sam in the great state of Alabama
we
> had a furnace in our nice air conditioned barracks( for most of us our
> father's had used the same when they had worked for Uncle Sam) And a
small
> stove almost like a barrel with a coil around it to heat water for the
> shower. My barracks was the only one which had more hot water then I
> needed. The coal piles had nice yellow stains running out of it and I do
> not believe it was paint. When my Dad sold the old homestead's house I
keep
> the cookstove. I had hoped to us it on our place SW of Galesburg but
wound
> up selling it for gas money the last trip I made to the farm.
> You sure could not beat the nice warm EVEN heat from a nice wood or coal
> fire. Not a fire place where most of the heat goes up the flue.
> sjh
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <PSHedgpeth@a...>
> To: <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 4:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Green Marked Coal
>
>
> > WEll Listers and John M.
> >
> > To pharaphrase Mark Twain...I continue to be amazed at the amount of
> > information that can be obtained with such a small investment of fact.
> >
> > I've appreciated all of the discussion regarding coal and "green marked
> coal"
> > in particular, but, John,,,,and you're the only one who would know I'm
> > sure"...What is the opening line of the little advertising jingle sung
to
> > "The Wearin O' the Green" that ends...Upon my soul, this Green Marked
Coal
> > beats any coal I've seen"?????
> >
> > I have always had an inordinate...many folks say obsessive...interest in
> > fires and playing with them...especially coal fires.....I always felt
> > deprived since we had a coal fired furnace at home with an IRON FIREMAN
> bin
> > feed stoker....So I didn't get to do any coal handling...only get in the
> bin
> > once in a while with a rake and pull down the coal that didn't run down
> into
> > the augar by gravity...My dad went into the furnace business after the
> RPL&N
> > quit, so he put us in an oil furnace, so I was deprived of any coal
> matters
> > at all after that...Also in my growing up years many folks in our town
> still
> > had coal ranges in their kitchen for cooking and some of my boyhood
pals
> had
> > the after school job of bringing in cobs and coal for these ranges...I
> never
> > got to do this at home...but it didn't take much "Tom Sawyer" persuasion
> for
> > them to get me to do this for them at their house...They thought it was
a
> > chore, but I loved it....
> >
> > Also thinking about handling of coal in the 1940's and there abouts...We
> had
> > two lumber yards in town and each of them handled coal...Each lumber
yard
> had
> > outside bins for the various kinds and grades of coal...Anybody remember
> what
> > Spadra coal was....I'm sure John that you do...Anyhow...The coal would
> come
> > in by rail on the Rock Port Langdon and Northern, in flat bottom
> gons...The
> > "coal heaver"...this was the guy hired by the lumber yards to haul the
> coal
> > and what I was threatened by my mother that I would become if I didn't
> shape
> > up with my schoolwork, would shovel the coal out of the flat bottom gon
> into
> > his truck...He would then haul the truckload to the lumber yard, and
> shovel
> > it out of his truck into the bin at the lumber yard...
> >
> > When a customer would order coal, the same CH would shovel a load from
the
> > lumber yard bin into his truck, drive it out to the customer's home,
again
> > shovel it out of his truck into the coal bin at the house...Talk about
> labor
> > intensive...It hardly seems possible now days, but that was how it was
> > done....
> >
> > Sand and gravel were handled in the same way.
> >
> > If you drive through any old neighborhood in any town and look at the
> houses
> > built pre 1940 you would see a metal door built into the foundation of
the
> > house...This was the door to the coal bin and was always placed where
> truck
> > access could be had. .. I've asked my own kids and other younger folks,
> when
> > I would see a house with one of these doors if they knew what they
> are...of
> > course they never do.
> >
> > Well, come on John....how about that first line.
> >
> > Pete
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>
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