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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 18/123

WE LIVED IN CRAMPED QUARTERS

We did a lot of living in the two-three years we lived in the old
kitchen area. It had a fairly large area and we filled it with living
and eating furnishings. Quite often Papa’s or Burnette’s brothers or
sisters would come visit during the late 40’s. To them coming to our
house was almost like camping. They had all the then modern
conveniences we didn’t, so they had to somewhat rough it. They always
seemed to enjoy their visits with us so much, especially if there
were more than one at a time. I think our food was better than they
usually had, after all most of ours was fresh from the farm. We got
our first radio while living there. It was a Philco, a big battery
powered AM (no FM then) table model. Uncle Edwin and Lila Gail
brought it in one night. I had already gone to bed it was a bit late
and I had already been asleep and was awakened when they come in and
I was vary curious what he was carrying under his arm. When I found
out what he had I was very excited, we now had a radio. (What's a
radio?) This radio served us well for over ten years. At night we
could listen to all the then popular radio shows and keep up on all
the war news. Uncle Edwin put up an antenna, he stretched a wire from
the house to the top of the big equipment shelter and connected it to
the radio, so it would bring in all stations on the air. I can still
see and hear Burnette come into the old kitchen and while crying
telling of FDR'S death.

We had moved into the living part of the new house a couple years
before but still used the old kitchen. We had a big L shaped back
porch, top half screened in. The two or three years we lived in this
part of the house the only heat was from the wood stove. In winter
that often was not enough, but in the summer it was often too much.
We had some canvas flaps we could close on the porch that helped keep
the drafty winds out. That part of Florida could surely get very cold
in the winter. While talking to Vera recently, she reminded me of how
cold those sheets would be when we went to bed. We would stand near
the wood stove and get real warm, then run jump into the cold bed.
Regardless how much cover was on the bed it was still cold for a
while. But, what was even colder was when you hit the floor the next
morning. After a winter rain storm passed and the cold moved in we've
seen the water spew up from the ground and freeze making inverted
icicles 8 to 10 inches high. That could create some very miserable
conditions to have to live and work in. There was no thermostat to
flip and turn on the heat, someone had to get up in the cold and
start the fire in the stove as that was our only source of heat.
Lucky for Vera and me we were too young at the time to have to get up
and start the fire, it would already be warm when we were awakened.
The porch

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