Chapter 2 - The House on Gorham Street
The House - continued
We had most of our meals in the kitchen at the kitchen table that could seat six. A large part of the kitchen was taken up by the stove, a combination coal/gas stove, and the gas water heater next to it in the corner. In the summer the stove was used as a gas stove. In the winter the stove was used as a coal stove, primarily, and the kitchen was the place to be warm. Wet shoes were placed in the oven to dry out, and people got close to the stove to warm up after coming in from the cold. The kitchen sink with its drain board was the other large size item in the room.
Off of the kitchen was the pantry that had the cabinets and drawers for food, plates and utensils, and the ice box. Ice was delivered to the house in 25 Ib cakes or blocks. We bought an electric refrigerator in about 1935, but the ice box was built in, so it stayed. (Any electric refrigerator was called a "Frigidaire" by both Mom and Pop. We didn't have a refrigerator, we had a "Frigidaire", no matter what the brand was.)
The back hall went down some steps from the kitchen to the back door. In the back hall was the milk box, where milk was delivered daily. Mom used to sit on the steps in the back hall while she grated the horseradish that was to be the chrain to be used with the gefilte fish that we had every Friday. The milk box doors would be open to get some ventilation and remove the horseradish fumes. (Bottled chrain could be purchased in grocery stores, but at our house it had to be homemade and made fresh.)
The back steps continued down to the basement, the cellar. It had a concrete floor but otherwise was an unfinished basement, not a living or play area. The basement had the deep sinks for the hand washing of clothes, the coal furnace, the bins for coal which was delivered down a chute through the basement windows, and the fruit cellar. (If you didn't have a key to the house you could get into the house by forcing open a basement window that was held in place by a bent nail, and making an awkward landing onto the coal pile.) In the fruit cellar Mom kept the canned fruits and vegetables that she had made, and Pop kept the barrel of wine that he made. (Pop had a wine press and each year made a barrel of wine - sweet red wine that we drank at holiday dinners and on Friday nights.)
Upstairs were the four bedrooms running the length of the house. At the end of the upstairs hall was the bathroom. Having the boarders or roomers and only the four bedrooms meant that there was doubling up. Pearl and Ethel shared their bedroom and bed until the time Pearl left Rochester for Washington in 1936. At the age of 17 Et finally had her own bedroom and her own bed. While Lou and Mitch lived with the family they shared a bedroom and included Jack Berman when he was a paying guest.
The attic was a full unfinished attic, and had the smell of an attic. It was used only to store items; mostly to store items that should have been thrown out. But, that may be what attics are for.
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