Our house on the Cumberland Plateau was a two-story clapboard built in the 1800s. It was heated by a coal/woodburning stove in the living room and a woodburning cast iron stove in the kitchen. If you stood too close, you burned your backside; if you stood far off, you yearned for heated comfort. In my father’s words, it was “feast or famine.”
Our bedroomsthe sound of it peppering our tin roof was enough to make us grateful that we were safe inside with my mother’s homemade quilts piled on top of us. One quilt was made of Aunt Susie’s old coats, all wool, and was incredibly heavy. There was not a cold bone in my body when Aunt Susie’s quilt was dragged out of storage.
