The house I grew up in was built next to my grandfather’s general store, they shared the same wall. I remember the big potbellied stove in the store. We’d burn our paper trash in it during the winter and also had coal as the primary heating element, with the occasional tree limbs. One had to watch it so that it did not get to hot and cause the tin stove pipe to the chimney from getting ‘cherry red.’
Heh! I remember potbellied stoves. When I was in the eighth grade, we lived in the mountains west of Denver. The one-room school had a potbellied stove. My job was to keep the wood-box full. That took about an hour a day.