One year, while turning our kitchen into a bedroom and our former bedroom into the kitchen, it finally happened. I had some strange desire at that point in my life when I had three children under the age of five to live pioneer style and do most things by hand. Things like outhouses, cleaning clothes by hand, large gardens, and having livestock all appealed to me. So did aprons and living to some degree (minus the sexism and racism, of course) like it was 1899. When it finally happened, we were that much closer to me living out these ideals. The “it” I refer to is the breaking down of our geriatric stove.
Rather than getting a brand new stove to replace it right away, we decided to wait it out a few months so we could save for a gas stove and its associated needed plumbing. After all, we reasoned, we’d be using the woodstove any way because it was cold outside. It had a nice, flat surface and removable pot lid burners so it had been made for cooking.
So, for the duration of winter, though we had the undeniable benefit of electricity for lights and music, we were beholden to our fire-building skills if we wanted coffee, tea, soup, or even baked goods.
At first, I delighted in the deliberate nature of cooking on the woodstove and enjoyed “earning” my morning caffeine. But some mornings were very tough. Or, they were warm enough that I did not really NEED to heat the house, but I WANTED my tea.
Eventually, I learned to make use of the stovetop for simmering soups (easy) and baking (somewhat harder). The kids for some reason had broken most if not all our chairs of our tables, and a few other appliances also broke at this time. Friends began to become concerned, alerting me to sales at Sears, unaware that the stove issue was, at least, my choice. It was rather comical, and overall fit the saying “when it rains, it pours.” But however hard they were on the furniture, those quiet mornings by the woodstove still hold a special place in my heart as some of my best mom memories. (Totally cheesy, I know, but true).
My daughter Elisha, five at the time, would say very poetic things to me, like: “Mom, when you are angry, you are like a kettle that is about to boil,” or she would ask “How does the fire eat the wood?” All the kids enjoyed building the fire, and I recognized in them my own five-year-old self that LOVED to play with matches (before I got found out). I was glad they could have the actual experience, so I would introduce the match to animate it, and then warm us. The woodstove, advertised in Lehman’s Amish catalog as a “Lincoln Parlor Stove” (it was a ‘good’ one, but not a ‘better’ or ‘best’ one) also brought out the cook within my daughter Elisha.
Tired of not being able to bake like in our former stove/oven combo, she devised a method and a recipe to make brownies, using a lidded cast iron pot on a trivet. (recipe to come).
By the time we found a cute 1950s-era Wickham gas oven/stove to replace the former model, I must admit I was relieved. It would be hot soon, but we’d still want tea or rice, without having to heat up an entire stove, chimney, and house as my great grandmother the Farmer’s wife had done. I was sad to know my pioneer days were ending in a sense; with those options would come the ability to waste more resources, or not. Soon enough, it was summer, and sweltering. So, even that small tinge of regret rapidly dissipated.
Looking back to that winter in 1998, I realize I was not nearly so worried about Y2K and its possible implications, because I had seen how we could heat our home and cook our food with just scrap twigs from the yard. That made me feel strong, going into the new Millennium, I may not have ended up living like a pioneer entirely, but I certainly have warm memories of trying.