Growing Up Rural: Wood Stove Ramblings

A series of old red painted single-paned windows stretched along the back corner of our house and from that room you could down the back hill to the crick below and the farm above the trees, the side yard with its’ two apple trees, well house, swing set, and the garage surrounded by Dad’s piles of wood and other interesting items. Against this wall of windows was a white enamel wood-fired cook stove with a black cast iron top and, as is often the case with most wood stoves, a large teakettle — full of water and encrusted with calcium rings — which was always releasing moisture into the dry air. This stove was literally the lifeblood of our house, particularly in the winter. Not only did it heat the upstairs area, but it was how we cooked all of our meals and the place where we would gather. I would wake up in the mornings with the air brisk and cold if the fire had gone out in the night. I remember laying there, not wanting to leave the warm cocoon of blankets, hoping that someone else would get up and get the fire going before I had to move. And sometimes I had to just suck it up, get up, and go get the fire going. Beneath the stove was a huge piece of 1 1/2” thick slate and behind it the walls were lined with tin sheets of printer plates. (Papa had stacks of these things from his days of running the 4 color Heidelberg press.) The right side was where we would stack a large amount of wood which had to be filled daily. We had two wheelbarrows, one of which was so old it had a steel wheel. Mom would often have to gently remind us to get “GO GET WOOD, NOW!” So Matt and I would cheerfully (always!) trudge out to the shed which was stacked with cords of wood that we had been splitting since the logging truck dumped off its’ load of logs in late July (and usually finished splitting and stacking in late September). We would pile those wheelbarrows up as high as we could so we only had to make two loads, and then would compete with each other to see who could carry the most wood in our arms at one time. Up the back porch steps, across the deck and through the back door, we would drop these ridiculous loads of wood with a crash. Dad would shake his head and say that was the “lazy man’s way” to try and save a trip but kill your arms in the process.

Despite having to feed that beast all the time, I had a lot of good memories of that stove. I learned to cook on it. Mom would have everything ready for the evening dinner when she had to work. And when I got home I would get things started for her. We cooked many Thanksgiving turkeys in that little oven. The crazy thing was that stove could literally roast us out of the room sometimes. When it got hot, the thermometer would read 83 degrees and we would be hanging out there in our t-shirts in the middle of winter. I remember many times of laying on the floor in front of the stove. Our dog Benny’s place was laying behind the stove on this ratty old red blanket, and late at night would find Dad on the floor, having fallen asleep reading his Bible or a Louis L’Amour book. Sara and I would often fight over reading the “funny papers” as Papa called them when he’d drop them off for us. Every so often, Dad would oil the top of the stove and it would be black and shiny for a little while. There was a coiled steel handle that lifted the round lids off, and pity the one who left it on the stove and then went to grab it… yowzas! 

We had other stoves in the house too – a little coal stove in the living room and later on, a giant iron beast of a furnace that burned both wood and coal. Dad rescued it from somewhere and we lugged it down the stairs to the cellar. It was a Maynard, so dad, who was fond of naming everything, called it “Mr. Maynard: Our Silent Servant.” So began our quest to empty the old coal bins of Amsterdam. Many of the old houses had large coal bins in their basements, often marked by a small door at the side of the house. People often converted to oil or gas furnaces, but never bothered to get rid of the coal bins as it is a messy dirty job. We didn’t have a lot of money, so Dad had the genius idea of asking folks with the “obvious door” if they had coal in the basement, and if so, did they want it removed. So we would show up with large plastic feed bags and dust masks, and shovel coal into the bags. We’d lug it up the stairs and into the back of the rusty blue GMC 1000 pickup he had. One day, shortly after Christmas, we were doing this, and as I was lugging this bag across the driveway, the guy came out of the house with a brand new dark blue winter vest in his hand. He told me he got it for Christmas and it wasn’t really his style and he thought it might just fit me. I put that on over my flannel shirt and it fit great. Perhaps a little big since I was a skinny kid, but it didn’t matter. It was a great blessing and brought a big smile to me. I guess we must have looked pretty desperate or something but it was just Dad doing what Dad did… thinking outside the box, doing things that few would think to do.

It was a different way to live in many ways compared to other kids I knew growing up. They had things I could not imagine having and it seemed like they lived much easier lives than I was used to. Looking back now, I know that the character that was built in Matt, Sara and I because we learned the value of working hard, of thinking differently and finding solutions to problems with what we had on hand, of stretching our imaginations with wonder and pretend — so today our lives are rich and full because of those formative years around an old white wood stove.