It’s official: I’ve put the flannel sheets on the beds, fall is here!

This, along with mulching the leaves in the yard and my husband changing the filter in our furnace, is pretty much all we do to prepare for cold weather.

But, when I was a little girl, it was much different.

As soon as the weather started to cool, I remember Grandpa bringing the heavy cast iron coal stove, which he had freshly covered with black polish, back into their house.

Every spring, the coal stove was stored in the smoke house to allow more space in their tiny living room. Granny carefully removed the round cover from the chimney to open it for the flue pipe to fit.

Almost every year, a bat who had used the chimney for a summer home would fly into the house. Granny, deathly afraid of the small critter, screamed a high-pitched whooping sound and chased the poor thing around the room swinging a broom at it.

If the bat was lucky, he would fly out the screen door that was being held open by one of us kids. After chasing the bat, she’d flop heavily on the couch to catch her breath and calm her nerves.

Granny and Grandpa would proceed with putting the stove in the exact spot so that the pipe from the stove to the chimney would fit perfectly.

If it was cold enough outside, Granny built a strong fire in the stove, beginning with the kindling wood and newspapers layered at the bottom of the stove, then she’d put in the heavier wood and coal.

Before you knew it, her living room was toasty warm and the dented silver kettle on top of the stove was letting out steam, telling us it was time for a cup of tea. All winter, Granny kept the tea kettle or a large pot of pinto beans simmering on top of the living room coal stove.

Mom also had a coal stove in our house up the hollow. Our stove stood in the living room year round, but we followed the same rituals Granny did for heating our house.

Every morning, the ashes were shook down into a large metal pan at the bottom of the stove. The ashes were carried outside and poured on a large ash pile. (In olden days, Granny used this ash pile to make the lye soap that she used for all her cleaning.) Next, if there were still embers burning in the stove, more kindling and coal was layered in the stove to build up a good fire.

The warmth in the living room depended on how many people were home and how strong the fire was blazing. Mom typically nailed quilts over door entries to hold the heat in the room. We regulated the temperature by moving closer to the stove if we were cold. If you were close to the stove and became too hot, you simply moved to more distant places in the room.

Every evening, we followed Mom to the wood pile. She had each of us children hold out our arms, upper arms close to our sides and forearms, palms up, perpendicular to our bodies. Depending on our size and strength, she layered thick chunks of wood on our arms to carry into the house. The babies always had the job of carrying the slender kindling wood. We’d dump our bounty into a large wood box, then immediately walk back outside to the coal pile.

At the coal pile, Mom had us pick out chunks of coal in varying sizes. Smaller chunks were for starting a new fire. Medium chunks were for having a strong fire burning. The largest chunks were saved for banking the fire to keep embers going throughout our sleep hours. We seldom had the fire go completely out at night. Mom made sure of this by sleeping on the couch next to the stove so she could check it throughout the night.

I remember praying that the coal pile would last the entire winter, but, most often, a new load had to be ordered somewhere along the end of February. When purchasing a load of coal, you really didn’t know what grade or quality the coal would be. Low-grade coal burned quickly, almost appearing to melt away. But if it were a harder grade coal, one large chunk would burn slow and steady, usually lasting throughout the night.

We ended each night by someone, usually one of the older kids, bringing in a full bucket of water drawn from the well. We had to be sure not to leave the water bucket in the kitchen on the worst of cold nights. Otherwise, the water would freeze and we’d have no drinking water the next morning.

In the mornings, Mom was up first and made sure the fire was burning strong before she woke us. She’d stand at the foot of the stairs and yell, “Fire’s on. You’ve got five minutes (sleep) soaking time.” When our soaking time was over, she’d yell again. This time, we’d grab our school clothes and run to the stove as fast as we could, to dress by the fire.

What a change has occurred in the past decades! Winters were much harder during my childhood and I did not enjoy them. Why I have such fond memories of it now I can’t understand. I wouldn’t want to return to hardships like this again, but I truly am grateful for having endured it.

As I cuddle up in my flannel sheets tonight, I’m grateful to a mother who didn’t give in to the hardships and for the strength she taught me to have in my life today.

Nora Swango Stanger, a Lawrence County native and Appalachian outreach coordinator for Sinclair Community College, can be reached at norastanger@gmail.com.