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
My Dad who just passed away on January 5th was another wood enthusiast. He cut it, carried it, split it, and burned it. This wood warned him 4 times! He is remembered when I too keep the wood fires going to warm our family and keep the little ones a safe distance from it. It’s been a wonderful gift of the forest and a good source of exercise. Here in America we build our houses of wood and my dad did that well too, teaching my brother as he did it. I am thankful to God for how He made the trees.
So sorry to hear about your dad, Becky. But glad to hear that he had a long and a good life.
Oh, Becky! I had not heard that your Dad had died. I’m so sorry. Thank you for the many-ways warm comment about him, and for letting us know. I’m sorry for your loss and will be thinking of you all. Love from here in NC.
Can you imagine trying to bake a cake or cookies with uneven heat? Agnes must have been a wizard at judging how many logs for how long meant how much heat. And sometimes when I read about this farm kitchen, I think how things have swung back around to kitchens being the center of life – the “open concept granite counters” of this century that we like so much have sofas and tables and even Agas — the farmhouse had it all in the beginning.
I do remember eating slightly burned ginger cookies from time to time. You’re right about how things have swung around. There’s something comforting about being in a room warm with the activities of cooking and baking.
Hi Carol – oh you are so right – the wood stove is the heart of the home. I am embarrassed to admit that with the “new” stoves – I still burn items with all the high tech stuff available to me. Your grandmother had magical hands!!!
I admit that I do too! And these days seem very lazy about even trying to bake anything.
I’m responding late to this post because I had so much to say–but wanted to wait until I could give the topic the attention it deserved. The wood stove was and has been the heart of my life in all it’s stages. I have deep memories of the stove in Grammy’s kitchen–memories of deep warmth, both literally and figuratively. Then, after Grammy died my dad kept our house warm with a functional woodstove in the basement, especially during the energy crisis years of the 70’s. He was always worried that the world was falling apart, so he worked to make sure we would have a safe, secure and warm place to be. Like Becky said, the wood served functions more than just when you were burning it. For him, chopping wood must have been a stress reliever, because on the morning of the muggy August day that I got married, in the pouring rain, my dad decided to go out and split some wood!
As I started building my own adult life, Tom and I bought a 1930’s Honorbuilt Sears home in 1983 and, when we moved in, all it had was a hand stoked coal furnace. Not willing to use that, we kept warm our first winter with an airtight wood stove in the kitchen, a fireplace insert in the living room and a heated water bed (along with youthful optimism) but no furnace! After that, when Tom’s grandmother died and left us a bit of money we bought a modern airtight wood cook stove which sits in our kitchen today. We don’t use it all the time, but love it when we do. It puts out a lot of heat, has kept us warm during power outages, including a 6 day outage after an ice storm on the day before Christmas Eve one year. That year, we cooked Christmas Eve dinner for about 25 and ate by candlelight. One special year, when my parents were still living and were here for Thanksgiving, we cooked a turkey in the wood stove as a way of remembering the Thanksgivings on the farm (everyone always said the turkey cooked in the wood stove at the farm was the best!) I’m the fire tender in our house–everyone knows it’s my job and I think they know it’s one job I don’t really want anyone to take over. When I do it, I somehow feel like I’m keeping the same embers glowing that burned in the kitchen stove on Whirlwind Hill.
This is so lovely Patti. Thank you for your memories and for the stories about your history with wood stoves. I wish I had been there for that Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight. Keep those home fires burning! And keep sharing your memories – you write so well. Miss you!