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The peasants would bring us raw wool as sheared from the sheep and feed it into the wooden processing machine that rattled like wagon wheels running over the cobblestone-paved main street. That machine was more than half the height of the room and at least twice as long. Yes, all in our living room! The manpower was furnished by the peasants. Two men turned the main wooden drum that turned all [the] other wooden drums. Usually a peasant woman fed the machine the raw wool, and another woman at the other end would roll up the matted wool into easy-to-handle rolls. The rolls were taken back to their homes to spin into yarn. The yarn would later be returned to us to dye. The dyed yarn would then be hand-woven into cloth by the peasant women for their new dresses and sometimes a baggy fitting suit for the husband-all so they could attend church in style on Sundays.
Local Trades
Ours was not the only family to conduct a business venture from our living room. To do so was an accepted necessity for almost all the villagers. It was economical [and] convenient, and the wives and children, if any, were always available to assist. In addition to the tailors, shoemakers, a general store, and a variety of other small tradesmen who used their all-purpose living rooms to conduct their trades, there was an outstanding and most likely a prosperous man called the Tucker (in Yiddish, a wood worker). His home faced the main street, and through two windows on the front side of the house could be seen a row of foot-powered woodworking machines that splashed wood shavings in all directions, to the delight of the youthful onlookers. The products that the Tucker turned out were in demand by the well-to-do, who lived in larger cities. The items consisted of stair rails, ornate table and chair legs, chairs, as well as small pieces of furniture. His creations were an unnecessary luxury and would scarcely harmonize with the natives' long tables, benches, and stools made with heavy-plank wooden boards...
Another “at home” enterprise... was the village blacksmith. His house was partitioned. The front part was used as the blacksmith shop and the rear was the living quarters, complete with all the known inconveniences and the noise of the heavy hammer pounding on the hot steel against the anvil. A soundproof house it was not. To watch the blacksmith at work was one of the thrills of [our youth]. The pounding on the anvil was music, and the flying red-hot sparks of steel were like falling fiery stars.
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