Now & Then Remembering the old wood-burning kitchen stove

— The old wood-burning kitchen cooking stove makes quite a contrast with today’s sophisticated kitchen ranges, with their timers, self-cleaning ovens and precision-controlled heat levels. In the early 1940s, my day always began with my coming out of my bedroom into the kitchen, and passing by the woodburning cook stove which stood at the north end of the room. I recall it as being a nice cook stove, at least for the time. Ours was mostly of a cream color, but I want to say that there was a kind of a green cast to the outer edges of the stove’s doors and drawers.

It seemed very fine in contrast with the basic black wood heating stove in our living room.

The firebox in our cook stove was at the left, with an adjustable opening at the lower front to control the air entering the fire.

The stovepipe came out from the rear, rose about four feet, and entered the flue opening in the middle of the wall. A lower section of stovepipe had a rotatingdamper with a bright metal handle, used to control the draft through the stove and up the pipe. In those days, my Dad started each day by building a fire in the cook stove, then he would go to the barn and milk the cows, and after an hour or so he would come back to the house for breakfast.

By then, Mom would have fried eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, and maybe cornbread for cornbread and milk mush. We always had a big breakfast. Sometimes we would have pancakes with Karo Syrup. We ate well on the farm, even during the years of World War II.

One morning, Dad had started the fire in the kitchen stove, and had gone to the barn for the morning milking as usual .

Mother got up a little late that morning, and whenshe came into the kitchen, the fire in the stove had overheated the stovepipe, and flames were coming from the wallpaper close to the flue. In her rush and fright, she remembered to close the damper on the stovepipe to stop the fire’s draft and closed up the stove tightly. But, the only thing she could think of to fight the fire was to grab her dish rag and start swatting the flames with it. As it happened, Dad was on his way back to the house when Mom yelled “Fire!” He grabbed the water bucket by the sink, threw the bucketful of water on the flames, and they were able to get the fire put out.

I think it happened before I was born, but I heard the story of the cookstove fire many times from my mother.

We also had an old coal oil cookstove in our kitchen, but I can’t remember Mom ever using it. She disliked the odor that came from the burning of the coal oil. We had lots of good firewood on the farm, so she alwayscooked with the wood range. I actually always liked the aroma in the room which came from burning wood for cooking. Standing by the hot stove on a cold morning while your breakfast is cooking gives a young boy a sense that something is right with life and the world. It is a great way to start the day. I can still remember the sizzling of the bacon and the scrape of the spatula in the skillet as Mom cooked breakfast. Food is good coming from today’s modern electric or gas appliances, but breakfast was great back in the age of the old wood stoves, too.

I guess standing by the hot stove was not so nice in summer, however. Back in earlier times, people used to build their kitchens separate from the rest of the house. Many houses had an open walk-through in the middle, sometimes called a dog trot. The living area of the house and the bedrooms would be on one side, and the kitchen and storage areas would be across the walk-through.

I’m sure that had some advantage in that the heat from the cooking didn’t heat up the main part of the house in hot weather.

It may also have provided a bit of fire protection. If a fire got out of control in the kitchen, maybe it could be contained there and snuffed out before it spread to the main house.

Early on I learned how to cook water in the tea kettle on the wood cook stove. Iloved to watch the steam rushing from the spout when the water was boiling hot. Some tea kettles could sing.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history.

He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/03/2010