When I was little I remember a big old hot water heater in the kitchen. It had to be run by gas because there was always a flame beneath it. This was about 1945. We moved around a lot and some places had no hot water heater. Does anyone remember heating water on the kitchen stove to fill the galvanized tub mom put behind the coal stove in the dining room . This was done when we had our weekly baths in the winter, because some "Flats" didn't even have a bathtub. We moved around a lot because the "relief checks were not always on time, and the rent wasn't always paid. My Mom was a widow with 5 children. Let us all praise God for all the abundant blessings He bestows on us in this day and age! Amen! Alice from Dean , Paulina, Elkgrove, Wolcott, Western , and Hirsch Streets or Avenues. These are some of the places we lived.

I remember our hot water heater being in the kitchen too. Right between the gas stove (which we had to strike a match to light) and the oil burning space heater used to heat the whole flat. Dad rigged up a stove pipe to the front blower of the heater and it ran along the floor in order to heat the living room during the winter. I guess we only used that room during Christmas. Some months, we just closed the living room off and my mom hung clothes to dry in there.