The heart of the home - Glimpses through the Past with Karen Webster

Today, we are going to travel back several decades to peek into a typical farmhouse where we will probably see several things that are no longer commonplace. 

 

If the kitchen is the heart of any home, then the cook stove was what kept the heart beating. It is where the food was cooked, water was boiled, damp clothes were hung behind and under which Laddie, the dog, curled up for long winter naps. 
A teakettle most likely sat near the back of the stove keeping warm until needed and then it would be moved to the front stove lid over the firebox where more heat was generated. On most wood stoves, a long cabinet with a door was mounted above the stove’s surface. This warming oven was handy to proof bread dough or to keep a meal warm for someone not present at mealtime. 

 

There was also a small oven beside the firebox. Most experienced cooks could tell if it was ready to use by waving their hand in it briefly. Some stoves had a small tank, or reservoir, attached to the side of the oven. Water was kept in the reservoir and that meant there was always nice warm water available for washing hands. If bricks were placed in the oven in the evening, they could be wrapped in a towel and placed near the feet to warm up an icy bed. On Tuesdays, the day after wash day, irons were heated on the stove to press the week’s laundry.

 

Of course, there would have to be wood for the fire and generally it was the job of one of the youngsters to make sure the wood box, located near the stove, was full and that sufficient kindling had been cut. 

 

Up on the wall, not too far from the stove, would be a metal box that was just the correct size to hold a box of safety matches.
The end result of burning wood is ashes. When the fire was out, a metal scoop was used to clean them out from below the grates. This was a dusty, but necessary job. The ashes were useful in the garden and, in the wintertime, could be spread on icy patches on the pathway and the lane. Another maintenance item that was necessary was cleaning soot out of the stovepipes that directed the smoke to the chimney. Soot is highly combustible and neglecting that chore could result in a chimney fire. It is extremely scary to hear a roar like a freight train while seeing the stovepipes glowing red and producing copious amounts of smoke.

 

On a hook beside the kitchen door hung an apron. It covered clothes to keep them clean, but that was not its only function. The large pockets were handy to hold a dust rag, or gather up eggs from the henhouse or a bunch of fresh peas from the garden. It also served to wipe a tear from a child’s eye.

 

Next, we see a sink with a hand pump on a stand with a small curtain below it. The water would have been pumped up from the cistern that was in the basement below the kitchen. This was a large cement room or vault that was designed to hold the rainwater collected by eavestroughs that was then directed into the cistern and stored until needed for washing clothes and bathing. There was nothing that could beat that soft water for washing one’s hair. Before the installation of hydro on area farms (which mostly occurred following World War II), water for cooking and drinking would have to come from a well that most likely was located away from the house. Buckets of water would have to be hauled into the kitchen.

 

Before the terms “recycling” and “compost bin” came on the scene, every kitchen would have a slop pail that received all the peelings. When full, the pail would be taken to the henhouse or be emptied into a pig trough. Nothing went to waste.

 

In most houses, one small Bakelite radio would reside up on a shelf, away from children’s reach. Silence was the rule when weather reports, markets or “The Funeral Hour” were broadcast. Static often won out over sound, but when reception was good, all the local news, cooking shows and adventure dramas like “The Lone Ranger” provided information and entertainment. Also, the only telephone in the house would be mounted on a wall, likely in the kitchen. There was no privacy of conversations in the household, especially if the neighbours on the party line were listening in too.

 

Before the advent of the electric or gas clothes dryer, the housewife relied on Mother Nature to dry clothes on a line outdoors. That worked fine for about eight or nine months of the year, but in wintertime a new routine occurred. The clothes, sheets and towels would be hung outdoors where they would freeze. The stiff laundry would then be brought indoors to be hung on lines strung in the kitchen or draped over wooden racks. It was always fun to watch a man-size frozen set of long johns turn from a rigid figure to a limp garment reclining on a drying rack.

 

In our house, we had a summer kitchen, located in an addition to the house. The cook stove was moved to this second kitchen so that all the heat from cooking food and preserving the bounty from the garden wouldn’t get into the main part of the house and thus made sleeping on summer nights more tolerable.

 

As we take one last look in that kitchen of old, we see a calendar, likely from the local general store or feed mill with its large glossy picture over top of the pages for the months that were torn off as time rolled by.

 

There are many other areas of the farmhouse to explore but we will leave that for another day.