A few days ago my neighbor D brought home a very old and dilapatated wood burning cook stove. Some parts were missing and it was a way after best before date. She wants it to cook with out in the yard. Here husband is a welder so there's no problem to get it back to where it is reasonably usable. She wants to cook pies and promised she would make me a pie if I was very, very good.
Seeing this old stove brought back many memories. On the farm in the 40' and 50's all we had was a wood cook stove to do all the cooking. We didn't get an electric stove until 1953 and then my mother kept her old wood stove. So my Mom had her electric stove and wood stove in the same kitchen. It took her a long time to get used to the electric stove.We would use the wood stove to keep the kitchen warm.
Women using wood cook stoves really knew what to do to keep a proper temperature when baking. They knew about wood. They could work with dry wood, green wood and wood from any species of tree.
I will never forget the wonderful smells of food cooking and things being baked in the small kitchen. Mom made large meals every day and was an excellent baker. we were spoiled with cakes and always had cookies in the house.
I will never forget the comfortable warmth when sitting around the wood cook stove. If it was cold in the house, we sat around the cook stove. If we'd been playing outside and got cold the old cook stove would warm you up quickly. One chore for little boys was to keep the wood box filled with wood.
For the weekly Saturday night bath the water was heated on the stove, the bathtub was in front of the stove and we sat around the stove to get drier. If we were really good we got hot chocolate.
Toast? I've never forgotten the toast. You would take off one stove lid and make your toast over the open fire!
So D has brought back many memories . I'd almost forgotten about wood cook stoves.
I looked on line for good photo but couldn't find anything that suited me.
