2.

How Do You
Light a Room
Without Electricity?

ARTHUR, Illinois—Supper was over and the kitchen at the Schrock house was almost pitch dark. Levi Schrock took the lamp from the hook above the table and jiggled it slightly to hear if there was enough fuel in the tank. This lamp burned “white” gasoline or naphtha.

Levi put the lamp on the table and attached a small pump—like one used to inflate bicycle tires—to a valve on the base of the lamp. He vigorously pumped a dozen strokes.

Levi detached the pump and flipped a small wire switch on the upper part of the lamp. This action cleared the gas passageway of dirt. Then he turned a black knob a quarter turn to the left and back again. A small amount of gasoline was forced into a narrow tube, called the generator, by the compressed air inside the tank.

Levi quickly lit two large wooden matches at the same time and held the flames to the generator. Their combined heat vaporized the liquid gasoline. After a few seconds two small white bags—called mantles—began to flame. An adjustment to the knob extinguished the flames, and the mantles began to radiate with intense light. The lamp gave a slight hissing sound.

Levi turned the knob all the way on. He hung the lamp back on a hook in the middle of a round metal deflector, which protected the ceiling from the heat of the lamp.

Lizzie Schrock and her daughters began clearing the table of dishes and taking them to the sink. Levi put on his coat and hat and grabbed a lantern from a shelf on the porch. This lantern was much the same as the lamp, except that it had only one mantle. The lantern was enclosed in a glass globe and had a metal top with a carrying ring.

Levi pumped the self-contained pump on the lantern and lit it in the same way as the lamp. Twelve-year-old Joe followed his father to the barn.

An additional lamp was lit at the sink while the women washed the dishes. Then Lizzie went to the enclosed porch to her sewing machine. Here she lit another lamp. This one had two mantles at the end of a long pipe extending from the middle of a small propane tank enclosed in a wooden cabinet. The tank was like those used for a gas grill. The lamp was on casters so that it could be rolled from place to place.

The girls and their two youngest brothers occupied themselves under the kitchen light with games and projects. Levi and Joe returned after doing the chores and joined the rest of the family.

The clock struck nine, signalling the time for the family to settle down for the night. After the evening prayer the two oldest children, Joe and Rachel, took flashlights and led their brothers and sisters upstairs to the bedrooms.

Rachel entered the girls’ room and directed the beam of the flashlight to a lamp on a table beside the bed. She took the glass chimney from the lamp and got a wooden match from a small container. After striking the match she held the flame to the bit of kerosene-soaked wick protruding above the brass fixture. This lamp was not nearly so bright as the pressurized mantle lamp, and its light was yellowish.

Rachel put the chimney back on the lamp and adjusted the wick with a small knob so that the flame was neither too low nor too high. If the flame were too high, it would smoke.

The younger girls snuggled into bed in the unheated room, but Rachel spent a few minutes reading and writing before blowing out the light.