Monthly Archives: January 2015

Things I Remember About the Farmhouse Bathroom

I like a secure bathroom. There should be a window – but only one window – and it should be small with an opaque shade to pull for privacy. One door is quite enough, and that door needs a proper lock.

My grandparents’ bathroom was nothing like that. It was large, open, and light – not originally meant to be a bathroom. Its spaciousness and lack of security made the simple act of sitting on the toilet fraught with anxiety. Someone might walk in unannounced, and once in a while they did!

Here are some of the things I remember about the bathroom on the farm.

The Door Behind the Desk

The bathroom had three doors. One led from the dining room, one from the back bedroom, and the third from the living room. This third door was not used in my lifetime. It was behind “The Desk” in the living room.

“The Desk” belonged to my great-great-great-grandfather Aaron Hall, Esq. and was reputed to be valuable. Its little drawers and cubbyholes held photos and documents, newspapers, and ancient spectacles. In the early days, when the only bathroom on the farm was an outhouse, this door probably led into a bedroom or sitting room.

“The Door Behind the Desk,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen, 2013

The Bathroom Windows

The two windows in the bathroom were large and low and looked out onto the back yard. The gauzy curtains were for decoration only, and the green shades were always up. One of the windows was directly opposite the toilet, and its placement meant that anyone walking past the window could see me sitting there.

“The Bathroom Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen, 2013

The Bathtub

The bathtub’s appearance is hard for me to remember. But it sat out from the corner of the room, and I don’t think it had a shower or curtain of any kind. A bather in this tub, like a sitter on the toilet, was exposed to the two windows and the three doors. I don’t think many baths were taken on the farm. My grandmother practiced once-a-month hair washing. In between washings she brushed her long brown hair the required one hundred strokes daily and pinned it up into a bun. One of my jobs when I stayed at the farm was to brush her hair for her. She died when she was eighty-two with barely a grey hair on her head.

“The Bathtub,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen, 2013

The Sewing Machine

The bathroom was a multi-purpose room. My grandmother did her sewing there on an old Singer treadle sewing machine. I think it stood between the door and the window on the wall opposite the toilet, but I also remember it being right smack in the middle of the room when she was using it.

“The Sewing Machine,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen 2013

The Toothpaste

A tube of Ipana (the Bucky Beaver toothpaste) sat on the sink, and was shared by everyone sleeping at the farm. Later on, my Indiana cousins brought Crest into our lives, and a tube of that joined the Ipana. I used something else at my own house – I think it was a pinkish bland-tasting tooth powder that I shook into a little puddle of water in the palm of my hand and worked to a lather with my toothbrush. It was a treat to use toothpaste from a tube – to squeeze the paste onto the brush and feel the startling bite of mint when it touched my tongue.

“The Toothpaste,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2013

The Unlocked Door

There was nothing worse than hurrying into the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet, and realizing I hadn’t locked both doors. This was the source of my greatest anxiety about using the Hall bathroom, and I think it’s the reason that I am so very, very fond of small, dark, cozy bathrooms.

“The Unlocked Door,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2013

On Monday: Pigs in the Kitchen

Spoons

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“Spoons,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2015

My daughter, when she was very young, had a best friend who spent many hours at our house. They were friends from the time they were born and had that kind of closeness that comes with growing up together. In their creative play they used their imaginations and whatever props they found around the house.

One of their favorite games involved gathering spoons from my kitchen drawers and carrying them in an old briefcase to their “house” under the dining room table. The friend called a spoon a “spung” and a briefcase a “broofcase.” Those words became a permanent part of my vocabulary.

Spoons carry with them associations and meaning. A favorite painting – “Sam’s Spoon” by Avigdor Arikha, shows a single silver spoon resting on a white cloth. When Arikha’s daughter was born, his friend Samuel Beckett gave him the christening spoon that had been given to him as a baby.

I treasure a set of spoons that belonged to my Aunt Hattie. They’re engraved with the letter “C,” (her married name was Cannon) and my mother thought I should have them because my name began with that letter. The spoons sit inside a satin-lined box that seems made just for them. They’re paper thin and probably useless for anything but stirring tea or eating the most delicate of puddings.

Aunt Hattie’s spoons

My kitchen drawer still holds colorful utensils used by my grandsons, who found more delight in the object holding the food than the food itself.

Henry with a spoon, 2007

The kitchen table on the Hall farm was used for every chore from plucking chickens to paying bills. But at three o’clock every afternoon my grandmother cleared the table of all but the coffee pot, pitcher of cream or can of evaporated milk, tin of cookies, sugar bowl, cups and saucers, and the jar of spoons.

Stirring the coffee was a ceremony, and I can picture my mother, uncles, aunts, and grandparents sitting around the table reaching for one of the spoons as they relaxed and talked and found a focus in the day. It was handy to have the spoons right there – to not have to get up and go to the silverware drawer or stir the coffee with your finger. I’ve tried several times to have my own spoon jar, but with no success. Times are different. We don’t drink coffee at the kitchen table, and we have reading glasses and pens in our jar instead of spoons.

I suppose the children could just as easily have played with forks, but there’s something soothing about spoons, especially when they sit bowl-side up in a special container. My daughter has her own house now, and in the middle of her dining room table is a box full of tiny spoons made for stirring a small cup of espresso, or as my mother used to call it, “a demi-task.” My mother and my daughter’s friend both added color to our spoken language, and now I always stir my demi-task with a tiny spung.

“Spoon Jar,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2013

On Wednesday: Things I Remember About the Farmhouse Bathroom

House Divided

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Long ago I had a dollhouse with a removable front. I could peer into the rooms, and because the roof came off too, I could look down onto the bedrooms, bathroom and staircase. For me this was magic – to be able move the furniture around and pretend that real people lived there. I’m a romantic when it comes to imagining the rooms in the houses I pass by on my walks. The glimpses I get into lit-up nighttime windows give just the barest hint of the lives lived inside.

I thought about my old dollhouse when I read my great-great-great-grandfather Aaron Hall’s will, inventory, and property distribution documents. The actual real estate settlement and uses of the land are still confusing to me. Where exactly was the “Lot adjoining the Garden,” or “The Meadow north of the bridge,” or “The Side Hill and Meadow, under the Rock?”

The thing that piqued my interest and made me chuckle was the description of future use of the “dwelling house and buildings” for the two important women in Aaron’s life – his wife Annis, and his daughter Mary. At the time of Aaron’s death Annis was seventy-five years old. Mary was forty and unmarried. Annis was Aaron’s third wife and Mary’s second stepmother. Aaron and Annis had been married for twelve years when Aaron died. Mary and Annis both lived in the farmhouse, and as far as I know they continued living there. Mary never married, and Annis died in 1844.

I have no photographs of Annis, but do have this tintype of Mary taken in the 1860’s.

Mary Hall, around 1860

Aaron left to his “beloved wife” no property except what she brought with her to his house at the time of their marriage. She was to share the use of the chaise and horse with his daughter Mary.

And she was to have the use of the house as stated here:

We set to the widow Annis Hall, the use of one-third part of the dwelling house & buildings north of the highway towit:

The east front room with the bedroom adjoining.
One undivided third of the keeping room.
The east third of the garret.
The south part of the old cellar to the amount of one third of all the cellar room.
The south part of the milk room.
Her right in the oven, and at the well, with the right of passing to and from the above named apartments and appendages.
Also her right in the wood room. [In the written document this looks like “mood room,” and I thought what a wonderful place that would be to have in a house – a place to hide out when you were just in some kind of mood.]

To his daughter Mary, Aaron gave six acres of land, $150, and his chaise. Her share in the house was also specified:

The use of one-sixth part of the dwelling house, while she remains single, towit:

East front chamber with the bedroom adjoining.
One undivided sixth part of the keeping room.
The west end of the garret to the amount of one sixth of all the garret room.
The remaining part of the old cellar, with the right to use the oven and the well.
Also the right to use the stairs and passes leading to and from the apartments and privileges herein set to her.

I try to picture how the women lived in this way, if indeed they did. Maybe it just had to be put down in writing in case some kind of argument ensued. But it’s hard for me to think of the rooms I grew up with – dining room, kitchen, living room, bathroom, parlor, etc. being used so very differently. I don’t know how many other people were living in the house in 1839 when Aaron died, but the 1830 census counts ten people. By 1939 my great-great-grandfather Salmon had married Cornelia and had added three children to the household – Aaron, Mary Jane, and my great-grandfather, William E. Hall.

I wish I still had that dollhouse. Maybe some day I’ll make a model based on the Hall farmhouse, but for now I’m content to speculate about nineteenth-century domestic life on Whirlwind Hill.

“Farmhouse Rooms,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2015

On Monday: Spoons

Have you Counted Your Handkerchiefs Lately?

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Have you ever thought about counting all the small (and medium and large) things you own? How many pillowcases do you have? Dishtowels? Spoons? Buttons? Cowbells? Nightcaps? Dung forks? And do you think your heirs will count them when you’re gone? Probably not.

“Dung Fork,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2015

But in 1839 when my great-great-great-grandfather Aaron Hall Esq. died, exact inventories were important parts of an estate settlement. Aaron had nine children and one wife, and he was very clear about passing specific property on to them. To read about the belongings he left behind is to gain a more vivid picture of the day-to-day lives of my ancestors.

Last fall, when I was in Wallingford, I went to Probate Court in the Town Hall to find Aaron’s will. I’d put off my search until a day when I had several free hours, thinking it would take a long time. But the efficient woman behind the counter needed only the name of my great-great-great-grandfather and the year of his death. It took her less than ten minutes to find and bring me a large portfolio containing this treasure, and later that afternoon I came back to pick up my copies of the nineteen legal-sized pages of beautiful handwriting and juicy information.

Detail of Will of Aaron Hall, Esq.

These are formidable documents. I’ve read the pages over and over, and still don’t quite understand what much of it means. The inventory is pretty straightforward, but the distribution of property, which I’ll talk about on Wednesday, is complicated and often pretty amusing.

The six-page list of Aaron’s real and personal property includes “wearing apparel,” “farming utensils,” “household furniture,” and “real estate.” My great-great-grandfather Salmon Hall and his brother Billious Kirtland Hall, the will’s executors, counted, recorded, and assigned a value to every item of clothing, cutlery, farm equipment, livestock, hay, money, etc. on the property. This section of a page includes an inventory of the bed sheets (I count 58 total) valued from 25¢ to $1.00.

Detail of Inventory of Aaron Hall, Esq.

Here are a few items from the executors’ list:

1 Loose Gown – 30¢
1 Pair Pantaloons – 20¢
1 Cow Bell – 6¢
1 Spit Box – 8¢
½ of 1 Dung Fork – 17¢, 1 Old Dung Fork – 4¢,
1 Calico Comfortable – 37¢
½ of 1 Cow – $14.00
7 Tons of Hay – $67.65
1 Porridge Pot – 34¢
10 Fowls – $2.37 ½
Pair Great Steelyards – $1.50
1 Sausage Filler – 8¢
4 Night Caps – 12¢
Chaise and Harness – $10.00
1 Beer Pot – 17¢
90 Lbs Cheese – $7.20

Some of Aaron’s inventory may still exist today.

This could be one of the linen pillowcases. It’s hand-hemmed and hand-embroidered with the letter “h.”

Linen Pillowcase

My mother was very fond of the old pewter, and I’m sure this duo was part of what the inventory describes as: “Lot of Old Pewter – $3.27.” It used to sit on the dining room mantel at the farm, and is now in the living room of our house on Whirlwind Hill.

Pewter platter and pitcher

And the foot warmer I talked about in my post about electricity might be the one recorded as: “1 Foot Stove – 50¢.”

Foot Stove

Cash on hand amounted to $56.43, and the sum total of all the personal property was $1400.26.

I try to picture how Salmon and Billious accomplished this task. Did they walk around carrying paper, ink, and quill pen to make their list? Did someone bring the items to them one by one? How did they decide on the value? Why was one pillowcase worth 17¢ when another was valued at only 12¢?

I’m trying hard these days to lighten my own load of unused and unnecessary detritus. But Aaron’s goal was probably to leave as much behind as possible. I’m certainly glad he left this list.

And just for the record – – he left 7 handkerchiefs.

On Wednesday: House Divided

Getting in the Ice

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“Ice,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2015

In June 1967 I moved to California for graduate school. Among the many things I learned about the west coast was that no one there called that thing in our kitchen an icebox. It was a refrigerator. In California-speak a pocketbook became a purse, dungarees became jeans, and sneakers became tennis shoes.

There’s a reason we called it an icebox. The one I remember was a big wooden box with a zinc lining, a heavy door, and a compartment for a block of ice. In this photo from our Thanksgiving supper in 1948, the icebox is right behind my head in the farmhouse kitchen.

The icebox, 1948

I remember ice blocks being carried into the kitchen hanging from large metal tongs and then squeezed into their icebox compartment. At that time my grandparents were, I assume, buying it commercially, but until at least sometime in the 1930’s my grandfather cut his own ice and stored it in the icehouse.

January was the month for getting in the ice. My grandfather waited until the pond ice was thick enough before spending the several days it took to harvest it.

Monday, January 8, 1912 – “Pleasant morning – washing done. Ellsworth preparing to get ice. Went up to Wilbur’s to get his ice plow. Towards evening commenced to snow.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The ice plow – probably pulled by a horse and guided by the farmer – cut grooves into the ice, first one direction and then another until the gridded ice could be sawed into blocks.

Wednesday, January 10, 1912 – “Clear and cold. Commenced getting ice, which is nice and thick. None so thick in a long time. Mr. Cella and son helping them get ice. Busy all day. Nice sliding on the hills.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The blocks were piled onto sleds and pulled back to the farm by horse teams.

Monday, January 19, 1914 – “A dark cloudy day. Looks much like a storm. Our washing not done. Men cutting ice. Got in three loads in afternoon. Ice twelve inches thick. Hard for the old blacks [the farm horses] to pull it up onto the road.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Ellsworth Hall with Little Doll and Old Doll, 1913

Wednesday, January 21, 1914 – “The men finished getting ice. The ice house is full of nice ice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

I wish I knew where the icehouse stood. It may have been the building next to the creamery. The ice would have been packed in sawdust to keep it frozen, and used all year.

Saturday, January 26, 1924 – “Much colder. Children at home going out and coming in with their cheeks like red roses. Agnes took Lydia to take her music lesson this morning. After dinner helped Edith clean kitchen and dining room and bake cookies. Men cleaning out the ice house getting ready for the ice, which they are expecting soon.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Lydia writes about two of the ponds used for ice cutting.

Tuesday, January 11, 1921 – “Ellsworth is cutting ice. Brought in six loads of ice from Mr. Leete’s pond. Mr. Leete and Charles Argonnis helping him.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Friday, February 8, 1924 – “The men are getting ice from our little pond down in the meadow. Mr. Ives is working with them. They are putting it in his icehouse. Ours is filled. They put it in – nine loads today.” – Lydia Jane Hall

One of the problems of the old-fashioned icebox was that the blocks of ice often had dirt and plant matter in them that made a mess as they melted. But the winter ice for me was all about skating and sledding, and I loved being able to peer down through the ice to see the frozen detritus. We skated on the little cow pond next to the lane until the late 1950’s when my Uncle Francis built a larger pond just up the hill from the smaller one. It was there that my cousins played hockey and I had a skating party where a friend fell and knocked out his front teeth. I’m sure my grandfather would have wanted some of that splendid ice for his icehouse, but these days I’m not sure if he would ever find ice that was twelve inches thick.

Skating on the big pond. The farm on the hill belonged at the time to the Farnam family

Skating on the big pond. The farm on the hill belonged at the time to the Farnham family.

On Monday: Have you Counted your Handkerchiefs lately?

A Special Day

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“And One to Grown on – A Birthday Cake for Henry,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2015

Today, as a departure from my regular blog subjects, I celebrate a very special day.

Eight years ago my first grandchild, Henry Thomas Kennedy, was born, and even though he isn’t technically part of my “memories of a family farm,” he counts in the history. To the next generation – sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, cousins and the children of cousins, grandsons and granddaughters – we pass the torch. Thinking about this continuity comforts me as I try to ease into old age.

I was lucky to live close to my four grandparents. They were my “back-up plan.” I counted on them being there when my parents weren’t around. They made a difference in my life, and I try to make a difference in Henry’s life. I know for sure that he, and my other grandsons, and my step-granddaughter, make a huge difference in mine. They make me laugh, they keep me busy, and they put things in perspective.

Because of Henry I now think of cashews as “Rainbow Nuts.” A headache has become a “Head Feeling.” And any time I want to encourage someone, I say the words a four year old Henry said to me in the grocery store after I successfully poked the little straw into the carton of chocolate milk – “Good job, Gramie!!!”

I don’t know what my grandchildren will remember from our times together. They might think about the games of soccer we played in the house, the walks we took to the park, the melty ice cream we ate on a hot summer day, or the times I got irritated at them for this and that. I hope they’ll remember how very much I cared that they were brought into this world, that their parents and grandparents loved them unconditionally, and that we bragged about them and their accomplishments.

Happy, Happy Birthday Henry!!!

Henry and Carol on Whirlwind Hill, March, 2008

On Wednesday: Getting in the Ice

The Woodstove

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It’s a frigid 8-degree day in Anchorage, Alaska, and the ice fog covering the trees and ground and garbage cans makes it feel even colder. There isn’t much color, and there’s no warmth.

How I’d love to step into the kitchen at the farm and sit in the rocker next to the woodstove. My grandfather Ellsworth often sat there rubbing his sore hands and soaking them in Epsom salts – he inherited his mother’s rheumatism, and he felt it in his hands, especially in cold weather. He sat in the rocker on the day before our annual Thanksgiving feasts chopping the onions and celery for stuffing. In the big wooden bowl he held on his lap, he diced the vegetables with a chopper that looked like an Ulu – the Yupik knife used to cut fish.

My grandfather was the one who lit the fire in the stove before dawn each day, warming his hands before he went to the barn. But it was my grandmother Agnes who kept the fire going and baked cookies and breads and roasts in its oven.

In 1934, when my Aunt Lydia demonstrated to the other “Capable Cooks 4-H Club” members how to make jelly, this big, black, cast iron stove was the only cook-stove in the kitchen.

4-H cooking demonstration in the Hall farmhouse kitchen. Lydia Hall at the stove, Janet Hall second from right, around 1934

When my mother and father and I lived at the farm, my highchair sat near the woodstove, and I stayed warm enough to eat lunch without my socks on. Sometime in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s my grandparents added an electric stove to the already crowded kitchen, and replaced the old wood-burner with a newer version.

Carol near the woodstove, winter 1947

I’m not sure if my memories of the stove are of the ornate black beauty, or of the more modern one that replaced it. Both of them had black cook-tops, and “burners” with concentric rings that could be lifted out by a special handle when wood needed to be added to the fire. How my grandmother regulated the heat I don’t know, but everyone swore that the pies and baked beans and Thanksgiving turkey made in the woodstove’s oven were far superior to the ones made in the “easier,” but much more boring electric one. The woodstove remained the heart of the kitchen. We gravitated toward it as soon as we came into the house. Summer or winter it brought comfort, welcome, and good cheer to the busy kitchen.

Patti Hall Burkett with her parents, Aaron Hall (in rocker), and Barbara Hall (with Patti) near the newer wood stove – -photo courtesy Patti Hall Burkett

On Monday: A Special Day

Electricity

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I try to imagine my life without electricity – without plugging into this and that. It would take some doing and many changes to take myself “off the grid.” Electric power and its many conveniences are thoroughly imbedded in my daily life. Sometimes, when I flick a switch and the magic current fails to make light, I panic. What if it never comes back, this thing that makes my days comfortable and the dark nights less frightening?

“On the Grid,” Carol Crump Bryner, pencil, 2015

My great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall, lived most of her life without even the knowledge of electricity. She had many of the comforts that I have today, but was probably more intimately involved with their creation.

Heat

This is a foot warmer. Place warm stones or maybe coal in the metal basin, close door, put under feet in carriage, cover with lap robe. Enjoy a sleigh ride in the snow.

Foot warmer

Light

This lantern is made of cut scrap metal. Light the candle, close the door, carry to the barn at dusk, hang on a hook inside barn door. Milk cows.

Lantern

Communication

Use pen, paper, and a stamp. Write and send a letter to a friend or a relative. Get one back.

Envelope for my great-grandmother, 1920

Transportation

Feed the horse, harness the horse to the buggy. Go for a Sunday drive.

Lydia Jane Hall with horse and carriage, around 1870

In 1914 Lydia mentions electricity for the first time in her journals.

Wednesday, September 16, 1914 – “A very nice cool day. Men gathering peaches. I am here all alone. Agnes gone to the dentist. Hattie gone to spend the day with Grandma Hart. William [William Cannon, her grandson – son of Hattie Hall Cannon] gone to Northford to a place that used to be called “White Hollow” to wire a bungalow “for electricity,” something I never thought of that my grandson would do for that place. Hope he may do it for this place some time.” – Lydia Jane Hall

The front hall light switch in the farmhouse had a white button for on, and a black button for off. It operated the upstairs as well as the downstairs ceiling fixtures.

Front hall light switch

Whether or not William was the one to wire the farm for electricity, I don’t know, but by 1924, when Lydia wrote in her last journal, the farmhouse must have had some form of electric power. And yet my great-grandmother and my grandparents still relied on wood to stoke the furnace and run the kitchen stove, candles to light their way to bed, fresh air to dry the clothes, and words – always words – to record, entertain, and keep alive the most important of energies – human connections.

Journal page – Lydia Jane Hall

On Wednesday: The Wood Stove

January Window

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Garrison Keillor said in one of his “News From Lake Wobegon” segments – “January is hard on people.”

Even though the daylight hours begin to increase, the promise of spring seems far off. The mornings are cold, and the nights are colder. The ice and snow that makes winter such a joy for children can be trying for the elderly. My great-grandmother, Lydia Jane Hall, saw winter life on the farm from her seat by the window. She lamented the frigid temperatures that made her suffer, but also praised the beauty of a deep January winter.

“January WIndow,” Carol Crump Bryner, monoprint

Monday, January 29, 1912 – “Cold. Snowed all day. Washed. Put out clothes, but didn’t dry. Brought them in frozen stiff, and dried them in the house. Ellsworth cutting cornstalks.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, January 25, 1921 – “Very cold this morn. The night was so cold and the wind blew fearfully – couldn’t sleep. My room so cold. Agnes took the horse and carriage. Took Lydia to the dancing school. Said she wasn’t cold coming home.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, January 22, 1924 – “Very cold morning. Below zero. Children going to school. Men getting wood and working in the barnyard. Work going on indoors as usual. Very cold – making beds upstairs – hands ache with the cold. Cloudy in afternoon – wind rising which makes us think and hope there is no blizzard coming. Night here and we are tucked away in bed with the bright moonlight shining.” – Lydia Jane Hall

See also: April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December windows

On Monday: Electricity

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner