219 Highland Ave, Ft Mitchell Ky

This was the second of three places Vera and Andy Kuebbing lived. The first was a second floor apartment on Holman St in Covington, the third was 72 Greenbriar in Ft Mitchell.

They moved there in the late 1940s. I believe it was about the time T was born.

The house is small; one bedroom, one bath, the living room, the kitchen, and a small knotty pine paneled dining area on the first floor. The basement was unfinished; it contained a coal-fired furnance, later converted to gas. The coal was fed into the furnace by a worm-gear mechanism. Each morning dad would clean the "clinkers" from the fire. They were large agglomerations of burnt coal pieces.

I am guessing that the second floor was partly finished as a single long, narrow room when they bought the house. The stairs came up the middle, length-wise. Their was a small ceiling, and then slope of the roof came half way down to helf-height walls. There was sheetrock/plaster on these walls, sealing off the edges of the area. Each side had a small door leading into unfinished storage area.

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The house next door down the street (on the right) was owned and occupied by the Ernst family. (One of the males name was Ray.) They had a daughter my age.

When I was young, on a fall day, the Ernst house exploded in fire. My memory is that a pilot light went out. The gas filled the house until it found another working pilot light.

The flaming side of the house fell on our house, which caught fire.  That side and part of the roof burned.

The only other detail I remember is that Mother had been baking Christmas cookies.  She had several sheets of uncooked cookies.  She handed them out to the neighbors.  For decades afterward, she had a grudge that not all of the recipients thanked her afterward, and at least one had the temerity to criticize her cooking/recipe..

See also:
R's bike . 219 Highland Ave neighborhood . rak_0