As our family went through my mother’s personal effects, we discovered these essays, handwritten in a spiral notebook. Immediately, we knew we had found a very special look into the early life of someone we loved and admired. We’re sharing them here in the hope that others may enjoy them as well.
November 23, 1986
These essays are being written because I have often thought how nice it would be if, say, my great-grandmother had written about what life was like when she was growing up. It would have been so interesting to know how people’s daily life and experiences fitted in with the history that was being made at that time.
There’s an advertising slogan for cigarettes that says, “You’ve come a long way, baby” and this is surely true of cooking methods. In the early years of the 20th century the housewife chopped wood, fired the cook stove, baked bread and cooked – quite a contrast to microwave ovens. During the slack season on the farm, people “got up wood.” They cut down dead trees, thinned the woods, and used down timber. By this time gasoline sawmills were used, but making firewood was a hard job.
Cooking on a on a wood range was an art. There were no directions written anywhere – you just learned by doing it. Wood that had been cut for 6 months or wood from down timber burned best as it was dried out. Some kinds of wood burned better than others. Some burned slow and was good for banking the fire after the meal was cooked or in the evening. Red oak was good when you wanted to bake. If you had to burn green (unseasoned) wood, it was best to burn it with dry wood. Burning too much green wood made a residue in the chimney. Once in a while the chimney would burn out – then all the dampers (drafts) on the stove had to be closed. Sparks would fly out of the chimney – if it was early in the morning everybody had to get up and get dressed fast as there was always the danger of fire. Shingles were made of wood then and lots of roof fires started from sparks from the chimney.
Hot water?
Wood stoves had a reservoir on one side – we kept cistern (rainwater) in ours. We kept a tea kettle on the top of the stove. On wash day we put the wash boiler on the stove. All these were our hot water supply. There was a warming oven on top of the stove. When you baked bread, you let it rise on top of the warming oven. If you had some green wood, you put it in the oven in the evening when there wasn’t much fire left in the stove.
These stoves created a lot of chores. Water had to be carried in, slop buckets had to be emptied, wood had to be brought in, ashes had to be taken out, this all created dirty floors and dust. Also firing the stove required a lot of time and know how. It depended on what you were cooking, if you were baking, how cold or hot it was outside and what time of the day it was. My mother really knew how to run a cookstove and was an excellent cook, both with a cookstove and on more modern gas and electric stoves.
Everybody remembers food tasting better when they were younger, but I do think some dishes prepared on a wood stove were at their best. I’m thinking of fried mush and livers, also fried squirrel and rabbit, homemade pork sausage.
Summer cooking
In summer cooking was done on a kerosene stove unless we got an unseasonable cool day. When we lived on the Bruegenhempke place, we had a summer kitchen. We had a kerosene stove out there. Some people had wood stoves in the summer kitchen. The idea was to keep the heat out of the house. Reminder – there was no electricity, no fans, no air conditioning. Cooking out in the summer kitchen was a welcome change from routine for the kids anyway. There was no refrigeration or deep freezers then.
Taken in West Point, Iowa, in the Summer of 1970.
Walt’s Comments
The first fire I ever lit was in Grandma’s wood stove. She had a bottle gas (LP gas) stove too, but except in hot weather she preferred the wood. I guess it’s all what you’re used to. I think of her every time I smell a wood fire. She had city water too (though no hot water heater), but she got most of her water from the well pump on the porch, or the rainwater cistern at the back of the house. As kids we loved to pump water for Grandma.
Summer kitchens
A summer kitchen was typically a small building set apart from the main house. It had several advantages over cooking indoors in the summer.
Originally common in wealthy households, these outbuildings kept the heat and smell of cooking out of the house. They also helped reduce the risk of fire in the main house.
Summer kitchens were also used to do the canning and food preservation. Some people did their laundry in the summer kitchen as well.
Summer kitchen usually had a stove, sometimes wood, sometimes kerosene, and at least one large table to prepare food on, fold laundry and even iron.
Digging Deeper
There are a number of interesting articles on wood stoves available. I found this one to be a particularly good read.
Sherrey
Love her stories. So glad she took the time to write her memories down!