Byrnesville and Keepsakes

I remember my grandmother going down into the cellar and stoking up the coal in and adding coal to the furnace early every morning in the cold weather. She would also make the best beef and vegetable soup. After long afternoons of picking berries up on the hill, Grandma Byrnes would fix them up for us with sugar and milk. She would always make me kneel and say my prayers before bed.

After my grandfather died, my dad and my uncles got together and bought my grandmother a new color TV which was a big deal and also had a new oil furnace installed to replace the coal stove. There was a concrete shower in the cellar across from the furnace and I thought I was pretty tough to be able to take a shower down in that scary place. At the other end of the cellar was a door which came up under the porch. My grandparents stored canned goods and cases of soda under the porch. It was kind of cool down there in the semi-dark when the sunlight came through the lattice which skirted the front porch of the house.