Chief, we weren't that far ahead in the "city", either. I grew up in Marietta, about 500 yards from the National Cemetery. Until the late 40s, we burned coal in fireplaces and then potbellied stoves. Mom cooked on a kerosene range. I went up to the corner to the local store, where there was a hand cranked kerosene pump, and filled a one gallon kerosene can, plugged with a potato, since someone had lost the cap. Down the street, my grandmother used a wood burning stove, as did my other grandmother, in her little tarpapered shack. (It looked like bricks.) Then they put in natural gas lines, and we put little grilled heaters in the fireplaces. They still delivered ice in a mule drawn wagon until the 50s, as my grandmother used an ice box. Our bathroom was built onto the back porch. We had only cold running water. Baths in the summer were in the tub off the porch. In the winter, it was a galvanized tin tub in the kitchen, with water heated on that kerosene, then later, the new gas, stove. Dad had gotten a Frigidaire refrigerater in 1940, when they bought the house (for $1500). When they sold the house and bought a new one in 1955, somehow GE found out we had the Frigidaire that long, with no repairs ever being required. They gave Mom and Dad a brand new one in exchange for the antique. For the year before I enlisted in the Navy, I think we all tended to soak in a hot bath until the water got cold. (Sometimes we added more hot water from the tap!) The Navy introduced me to the five minute shower! LOL Stan