We were the lucky owners of an electic dryer in our home. Not the tumble dryers of today, but more along the lines of a heated closet. Inside, the dryer had wooden rods going across it to hang the clothes on, and below the rods was a heater covered by a grate.
We almost never used it, as my mother preferred to hang clothes on the line outside. However, this long weekend I had gone to the snow with a church youth group, and in an effort to keep warm I had taken just about every sock I owned. When I arrived home with all of those socks, soaking wet, my mother decided the dryer was needed.
I went off to school the next day, and when I arrived home it was to a soot ridden, smokey shell of what used to be the place we lived in. The fire investigation team said that it had started in the dryer, most likely a sock had fallen on to the grate and caught fire.We pretty much lost everything, not because everything burned, but because of smoke and water damage.
All of our photos were kept in my parents room which sadly, connected with the back of the dryer. Most of them were destroyed, so what few remain are precious. I made the following little tag book for my sister, and it holds the few pictures that we have of us together as children.
(click on pictures to enlarge)
