I am doing a follow-up story on climate, as there is more to tell. To be fair to Croatia, it’s warmer in the winter there than it is in Hibbing, Minnesota. Where my grandfather lived in Donji Kosinj, Croatia, it is at least ten degrees warmer. I had second thoughts about those ten degrees, as they would make a difference to me. My grandfather was almost 42 years old when he moved to Hibbing. When I reached 42, I was less able to weather the cold and endless winters in Wisconsin. I have to believe that my grandfather was feeling good about his new life in America, and not concerned with the weather. A good thing was that his summers were as nice in America as they were in Croatia.
100 years later, there are other differences I thought about this past week. One differentiation is that keeping warm is easier today. We have lightweight, insulated clothing. Winter clothing 100 years ago was mostly made of heavy wool. Rural immigrants couldn't afford the stylish clothing we see in period movies or fashion history. My Aunt Rose talked of wearing long and heavy wool coats, bulky sweaters and skirts to keep them warm. She reminded me that women did not wear pants! Everyone wore long cotton or wool socks to keep warm. Women wore much longer socks under their skirts or dresses, but they never wore pants.
My cousin, Marilyn, additionally mentioned that they wore garter belts to hold up those long stockings. The garter belt and socks sometimes fell to her ankles. The socks were heavier than the garter belt and were the probable cause of such embarrassing situations! She also told me that walking through wet snow was worse, making their feet and legs colder, and red.
Marilyn was working at age 16, had her own money, and purchased her first pair of pants ever. When her mother found out about the pants, she wanted Marilyn to return them, as women were not supposed to wear men's clothing. The pants were not returnable because of a spot of grease Marilyn got on them.
Actors Marlene Dietrich and Kathryn Hepburn wearing pants helped to make pants become acceptable in the 1930s. Still, women wearing pants was not OK in many situations. I had to wear a skirt or dress to school until 1969, as pants were not acceptable in schools. I was able to wear pants under my skirt on the way to school, but had to remove them and keep them in my locker during the school day.
If my shoes got wet from rain or snow on the way to school, we dried them on the school radiators in the classrooms. As a child, I wore rubber boots, with my shoes inside the boots. I don't remember wearing a shoe boot until late high school or college. Boots were expensive for a family, if worn only for a few months during year. They would need a larger size the next year. Larger families could hand them down to younger kids. Marilyn or Aunt Rose couldn't remember if they had boots. They might have had rubber "galoshes", which slipped over shoes, or boots with zippers or buckles. Men wore them to keep their shoes dry and protected. There still are galoshes available today.
Homes were not insulated before the 1970s, when an oil crisis caused heating oil prices to rise dramatically. People began to insulate attics and walls. The 1920's Crnkovich family home, located outside of Hibbing, was a wood house. It had at least one stove for cooking and heating the house. The stove had a pipe that went through to the second floor to heat the upstairs room. If I lived like that today, I'd be sitting right next to that stove! See the Crnkovich home in Nelson Location below.
After coming home from school one day, Marilyn was near the stove warming up from the walk home. The heat scorched her new red chinchilla coat. She had purchased the coat by making monthly payments. She continued to wear the scorched coat, as she couldn't afford to replace it.
Stoves burned wood, and someone had to cut the wood, store it, and stoke the fire. There are no trees near the house in the family home picture, so the wood most likely came from another lot, miles away, that John Crnkovich owned. Marilyn explained that coal could be used in the stove at night, as it burned more slowly.
Aunt Rose told me that she was lucky to live in a home that had three stoves - in the kitchen, in the living room, and in a large washroom. Her father was able to purchase a nice home at a very good price after an iron-ore workers strike. The mining company forced strikers to leave the homes. I am not sure if the mining company owned the homes, but they were homes built close to the mines for the workers.
The washroom had wood and coal stored there, and Aunt Rose can recall the smell of the coal that always was in that room. She helped to carry coal to the washroom when she was young. There were train tracks close to the Crnkovich home in Nelson Location. During the depression, the kids would pick up coal that had fallen off railroad cars. Railroad men didn't mind the kids picking up coal, even where train cars were unloaded.
During the winter, an inch or more of ice would form on windows, according to Aunt Rose. She said they would bank snow against the sides of the house, because houses were not insulated. Snow added an additional layer that slowed heat from leaving through the home's walls. It was their version of insulation.
The four girls in Rose's family slept in a bedroom on the first floor. It had two beds. Rose and her sisters, Katie and Annie, shared a bed. Her older sister, Mary, had a bed to herself. They did not have a "chamber pot" in their room at nite. She thinks they didn't have one because they were on the first floor. They could get to the outhouse more easily, than if their bedroom was on an upper floor. Yes, everyone had outhouses.
In 1920, there were at least six Crnkovich children living at the John Crnkovich home in Lavinia. My father was not yet born. In 1930, seven children were living in the Nelson Location home. I learned who was living in these homes because of Federal Census documents. The Nelson location home had a stove with the pipe extending through to the second floor, heating the upper space. None of the kids had their own rooms, except for Katherine, the girl in the family. Kids shared beds as shared body heat kept them warmer, and in those days, kids didn't normally have their own bed.
Today, Rose is 94, and still lives in Hibbing. Her home is heated with fuel oil. The oil tank in the basement needs to be checked so it doesn't run out of oil. Fuel oil is delivered to the home and the tank is filled with a hose from the delivery truck. Marilyn, at 89, still lives in the area too. Her home was converted from oil heat to gas heat. Gas is always available through underground pipes, and doesn’t need to be ordered.
At times, wood is cheaper to burn than oil. My cousin Marlene sometimes uses a wood stove today. "We only burn wood when it is really cold or damp outside. When the fire gets hot, it will turn my furnace blower on and blow the heat through the vents. I have oil heat. I can run the wood stove and the furnace at the same time. " Marlene's stove is in her basement and used to be the stove her Grandma Maras cooked on. "They knew how much wood to put in, and keep the temp just right for cooking and baking bread. To me, it was a special art to get it right. These wood stoves also kept the kitchen area warm. I bet the kitchen was hot during the summer because of the stove’s heat while cooking."
Below is a photo of Grandma Crnkovich, in her Nelson Location home. A cast iron stove is in the forefront of the photo. The “M” on the front may imply Michigan Stove Works made it. It looks like a Victorian style, embellished with some chrome. A side panel is lowered, where heat escapes to warm the room. These types of stoves had oven areas to cook food, although this one doesn’t have a stovetop. There may have been another stove in the kitchen.
Marlene had another story to tell me, about removing snow from her roof. I never had to remove snow from the roofs of my homes in Wisconsin, but Hibbing gets more snow. Her roof design is flatter, so the snow can accumulate over the winter. Her brother, Marty, helped her this past week with removing snow. "When Marty was on my roof it was past his knees in spots. Most people are taking snow off their roofs just in case we keep getting more snow." See Marty on Marlene's roof, in the photo below.
A snow rake can be used to remove snow, as seen in the photo below, where she is using it to remove snow from the garage roof. Once it's off the roof, there is an extra step to remove it from the driveway. Marlene uses a snow blower. I'm so happy that I now live in a warmer climate. I don't have to remove snow anywhere, anytime, anymore!
Marlene wrote, "Today I was bringing in wood, to the basement. Marty came over to help so we got it done a lot quicker. It is the last of my wood. This wood will take a while to get dried out. I’m going to get more this spring, put more in the basement, and store the rest in the backyard - bringing it in when I need it. Getting the wood to the basement is good exercise. I did it myself this fall. Anyway, cleaning up after bringing in the wood is more work because of wood chips. So, I am done!! I hope the snow stops so I don’t have too much to remove tomorrow." See photo below - the front of Marlene's home.
One last mention about "old times". My grandfather never had indoor plumbing, nor did Rose or Marilyn when they were young. So, when it was below zero, the way to the bathroom was outside... to the outhouse.
I thought about my dad's childhood years. Did the stove provide enough heat to feel comfortable without coats? Or, did they wear coats and hats inside, when the weather outside was extremely cold? I thought of all the conveniences I have, compared to when they lived in the early 1900s. I have indoor plumbing - toilets, showers, sinks with running water, and more. They did not. Regardless of what type of weather they had, in summer or winter, they had to go outside to "go".
Uncle Martin, Marlene's dad, told her about their cold bedrooms at the home in Nelson Location. At times, they would wake up with their hair frozen to the metal post headboard or wall!! Maybe body heat would cause moisture in the hair that made it stick? Something similar to sticking your tongue on an icy metal pole? I laughed out loud when I read Marlene's note about this.
Something else was different from today. My grandfather didn't have electricity in 1910, although they did have it in a later home. So, they had none of today's conveniences to prepare food. They didn't have a television or radio to entertain themselves, although they had a radio in the 1930s. They didn't get a ride to school in a car or bus. Their father never owned a car. The only thing that was slightly similar to my world is that I walked a mile to school, even in the winter. I was in junior high school at the time, and there wasn't a bus service. At age 7 and 8, I rode one mile to school on a bike, during good weather. My parents bought a bus pass for the winter, so it was easier in the winter. It was life, in the old days. Kids today probably don't want to hear about the old days, just as we didn't want to hear about such things when we were kids.
My last weather story is about my home today. I didn't turn on the heat in my home this winter until January of this year. I was curious if I could "weather" the cold, as people did 100 years ago. My experience wasn't all that comparable, though. My house is well insulated and the outside temperature didn't get lower than 28° F. The inside temperature was never lower than 55°. In my first week of cold weather, it wasn't easy for me, but I adjusted to it within the week. I wore layers of clothing to keep warm. I sometimes wore a hat and fingerless gloves. There were days when the temperature outside was above 70° F. There were a few days when it was as cold in my house as it was outside, both at 55° F. It seemed warmer outside because the sun was shining. That was a bit weird.
It has not yet snowed here this winter, but when it does, it will melt within a few hours. In the last two days it was close to 80° F. Today, it’s only 28° F with a wind chill that makes it feel like 18° F. That's how it goes here in central Texas, in the winter, as the cold doesn't last long. It's easy compared to Hibbing, Minnesota - then or now.
