My family was har up, with Father a peddler, Mother a housewife, so many children to feed. At thirteen,as the eldest child, I acted to help support the family.
Each morning when I went out to practice singing in the open air, I took a little basket to scrounge for cinders for our stove. Even when scrounging for cinders you had to have your wits about you shift from place to place to avoid those mischievous boys who banded together to collect cinders too.
