How did they do it?
One question I keep asking myself at this time of year is “How did they do it?”
“They” are the people of the 19th century, and the reason I ask myself this question is because I live in a house built in the first half of the 1800’s, somewhere around 1840, before central heat, electricity, and indoor plumbing.
Two days ago we had a snowfall in 24 hours of around two feet, not an unusual event here in the foothills of the Catskills, but until several weeks ago, winter was in disguise with mild temperatures and barely a flake of snow on the ground.
Then the temperatures dropped into the single digits and below. Next we had light snow flurries—an inch here, another inch on top of that. Still, the new snow blower we bought on sale last spring continued to gather dust in the garage.
But Tuesday night, the Snow Queen threw off her disguise, and snowflakes fell, small and light at first, then larger and heavier as inches of accumulation turned into feet. Wednesday, Bob and I did several shifts of shoveling and snow blowing the driveway, the front walk and steps, and paths to the birdfeeder and up the hill into the woods where the dog goes to relieve himself. By Thursday, when the wind was still howling and blowing some of that snow right back into those paths, both of us had muscles that were letting us know we had pushed them beyond their normal routine.
Still, I am not complaining. The snow blower cleared paths in a fraction of the time it would have taken to shovel, and with both of us in our 50’s, our backs were happy to bend in honor to it rather than to pain and injury.
And when we were done, we gratefully came inside to get out of our wet, snowy clothes, to take a warm shower, and to eat hot soup and drink a cup of tea, all accomplished with merely the turn of a handle.
And I kept thinking, “How did they do it?” How did they contend with the mountains of snow, with cold temperatures inside and out, with the hauling of wood or coal to provide the heat necessary to survive our winter chills?
The amount of work required just to stay warm and fed all those years ago boggles my mind, especially since the first year we lived in this house we heated all winter with only a woodstove—and that was the winter wind chills outside dropped to 40 degrees below zero for a week when our sons were all under 6!
I mean, I understand how physically they heated their homes and food, shoveled away snow, and traveled by foot or horse-drawn sleigh. I just don’t understand how they managed to get up each morning for four or five months in a row and do it all over again without succumbing to depression and insanity.
So I get up each morning in weather like this, and I move into that attitude of gratitude those spiritual gurus advise us to practice. I am thankful for electricity that keeps my food cold and my shower water pleasantly hot; for central heat that means no matter what room in this old farm house I enter, I am still comfortably warm; and for that snow blower that vaults hundreds of pounds of snow into the air with beautiful ease. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Now, for some hot chocolate…