The first thing anyone would see coming in through the main kitchen door or through the back door (from the unheated back room and barns beyond) was the kitchen stove. A gift from my dad’s parents, it replaced the wood-burning stove used prior to my father buying the farm and my mother moving in after their wedding on Aug. 28, 1948.
The Florence stove was a combination of propane and kerosene. On the right side, if you were facing the stove, were four propane burners and a pilot light. In the center, below the range top, was the oven with blue, dancing propane flames that appeared after you’d taken a wooden match and lit each side of the oven. A door to the right of the oven opened to a storage compartment for broiler pans.
The left side of the stove contained two kerosine burners underneath the metal top that had several round plates you could open to see the burners and the space to the right of the burners. A little door on the left side of the stove also opened to the round burners and had two small windows covered with mica.
Decorated with white enamel, the stove stood on four black metal feet, several inches high, and a shiny pipe ran from the stove to the chimney behind it.
The space in back was wide enough for barn cats to walk through and then crawl underneath. They curled up for a nap, soaking up the heat, until a cruel human pulled them out at night and sent them out the back room door into the barns.
From late August until sometime in May, one of the kerosine burners stayed lit (except for the rare occasion when a gust down the chimney blew it out). Heat generated from that burner baked large, round white potatoes that were first washed and pricked several times with a knife and carefully placed inside the stove next to the burner. Within an hour the hard, raw spuds were transformed into crispy skins and flaky, white interiors.
The burner constantly heated water in Mom’s stainless steel kettle, moisturizing the dry, winter air. Cast iron fry pans on top of the stove where the burner was lit sizzled eggs, Canadian bacon, eggs-in-a-blanket, hot dogs and onions, leftover baked beans…the ideas were endless.
Coming into the house on a cold, dim afternoon, after fighting below zero F. temperatures outside or in the barns, you’d hear the kettle’s simmering water and feel the radiant heat from the stove pushing against your face. Hands, sometimes red, automatically reached out.
The kitchen with its table, chairs, and rocker, and the adjoining farm office with its roll top desk, remained very warm throughout the winter. The dining room—used for watching TV, napping on the couch, and sewing in the corner—was filled with the stove’s friendly heat. The door joining that room to the kitchen and office was always left open.
All other interior doors were shut most of winter and fall: the door to the downstairs spare bedroom, the door to the living room (also known as the front room), and the two doors connecting the downstairs hall. There were gray radiators in all of those rooms—including the kitchen and the bedrooms upstairs—that were attached to an ancient hot water boiler in the basement. But except on the coldest of days, the boiler didn’t have to boil. The stove warmed what was necessary.
Decades later after our family had grown and Mom and Dad had died, the farm was sold to a younger family who moved into the farmhouse and all its rooms. For awhile, even the combination stove was kept, though silent.
After one kind invitation, I walked through the first floor, amazed. All the interior doors were open. Even both doors to the hallway stairs. The place did look much bigger, but after that next winter, I heard that the ancient boiler in the cellar had to be replaced.
Dad had kept that boiler going for years, replacing parts when needed. It never had to heat the entire house 100 percent of the time. Even nights when the last person to go upstairs to the bedrooms left one hallway door open for the stove heat to drift upward, even when the radiator pipes clanged and thumped, bringing more warmth to the rooms—the stove did its part.
Dad relaxing near the stove, chatting with family and farm workers, waiting for supper, 1957.
When the stove was running and the extra doors were closed, you couldn’t be mad at anyone in the house for long. The heat caressed and coddled you until you felt warm and cozy and happy to be inside and not out. Cats purred while baking under the stove and the hot kettle sputtered on top. Fruit pies bubbled in the oven and spuds softened next to the kerosine burner. Wet mittens and gloves and socks hung nearby while a sleeping dog danced her paws in a dream.
No, you couldn’t stay unhappy for long. The stove kept us congenial and content until the storms cleared and the outside temperatures slowly rose, when life on the rest of the farm commenced with planting and cattle out to pasture, cats roaming down to the woods and kids running off on their bikes.
The kerosine burner would be blown out and the stove kept cold as the humidity and heat from the sun grew strong.
Such were the rhythms on the farm, the combination stove included.
We always would return, however, when fall came and the burners were lit. And the happy, winter days drew near, again.
