Brrr! It is January and for our Central Coast very cold BUT it can’t compare with the January windy, snowless, below zero cold of Chicago, Illinois.

Whenever we had to go out in the Chicago cold for any reason, we bundled into layers of warm clothes. Even with all of those clothes, the icy wind seemed to blow the cold through to our bones. Our feet suffered the most because they were in constant contact with the frozen ground and cement walks. We couldn’t tuck our toes under our armpits for warmth as we did our hands. Even though we were wearing thick stockings inside of sturdy shoes, inside of heavy galoshes, our toes became so cold that they ached, then turned numb.

No matter how we froze, we always had the comforting picture in our minds of the little pot bellied stove with the fire dancing behind its isinglass windows, waiting in the cozy back parlor of our home to warm us.

Our grandfather had set the little stove up as a refuge from the cold the first winter he moved his large family into the house. As the years went by, each generation of the family brought it from the basement where it had spent the summer, set it up in the kitchen and then basked in its warmth all through the cold winter months. My brothers and I were the third generation to enjoy it.

There was a nickel fender around its belly to protect people from bumping into the stove and being burned. It was attached by brackets which held it away from the stove wall to prevent it from becoming overheated. However, it did become warm enough to make a perfect place to thaw frozen feet. It was almost a ritual for anyone coming in from the cold to set a chair next to the stove and prop feet to warm on the fender as soon as all outer winter garments were shed and feet stripped of everything but stockings.

When my brothers and I came into the house after a cold walk home from school or play outside with friends, we would sit around the stove with our feet on the fender reporting to each other midst yips and ouches, the status of the often painful process of thawing toes. It felt wonderfully good when they were finally warm. If a person has experienced thawing toes the unpleasant process doesn’t have to be explained here. If a person hasn’t, no explanation is possible except to say that it happens in stages and it hurts.

Why would anyone want go out in weather cold enough to freeze toes? It is a trade-off. Who would want to stay cooped indoors all winter just because it gets cold outdoors? For young and old alike, there was recreation and no matter the weather, always necessary places to go and things to do.

Now what do the bricks mentioned in the title of this tale have to do with freezing toes? A lot!

The stove was topped by a fancy, urn-like, nickel filigree attached by a swing-away hinge. When the filigree was swung aside the flat top of the stove was free to be used as a warm cooking surface. You may remember in a previous column I wrote about the broth mother made there. She always used it in the cold weather to heat our bedtime bricks. An hour or so before we went to bed she put a brick for each of us on the stove top to heat. By bedtime they were too hot to touch. Mother would take them off using a hot-pot holder and wrap them one at a time in several layers of newspaper. Each of us children would take our wrapped brick to our own bed, and warm the covers by sliding it around under them. We began at the head of the bed and ended by leaving it at the foot of the bed. All warmed, we jumped into the bed and pulled the covers tightly up around our necks or over our heads depending on how cold the room was.

I don’t know what method my brothers used to warm their feet with the brick. Mine was to wrap my feet around it as much as anyone can possibly wrap feet around a brick, until they were reasonably warm. At that point, I pushed it a little here and there to warm more bed for the parts of my feet that couldn’t touch the brick. When I was satisfied that enough bed was warmed, I held the brick between my feet and went cozily off to sleep.

No matter what method my brothers used, at least they also went cozily off to sleep. I know because it was my youngest brother who reminded me to tell about the bricks and how good it felt to go sleep with their warm comfort.

We children were all asleep by the time our parents went to bed but I would be willing to bet all of the modern electric heating pads and blankets in use today that they took bricks to their bed too and snuggled their feet against them for a warm winter’s sleep.