: I was born in a two room house with a central
: fireplace for both rooms.

Well, by the time I was born we did have 3 bedrooms in the house, which for a family of 10 wasn't saying much. We heated the entire house with a wood furnace. There was a small coal stove up stairs in the lving room that helped to dry mittens out and warm your hands after shoveling snow. The stoves didn't go away until late 80's, when my father got too sick to cut wood anymore. This is a house in New England where it get's mighty cold in the winter time.... blankets were stacked so high on the bed, you couldn't breath because of the weight.... We did get to pee in a toilet though, that was nice :-)

Rich ? I think there was a kid in school with the name, but that's as close as we ever got to that word.... as I said before, the stoves didn't go away until the late 80's...