In the good old days, the kitchen was the heart of the home. In many cases it still is today. When I first moved to Hickory Heights there was a Home Comfort stove in the kitchen. It burned wood. I had no idea how to use it, but I learned. I had to because I had no other stove.

The stove was not one of the pretty ones that you often see in the old-time kitchens. It was utilitarian. It did what it needed to do. There were two doors on the top near where the heat exited. That was the warming oven. It was great to keep things warm. I could also just leave something on the top of burner to keep it hot.

The thing about a wood burning stove is that you had to really watch it. You had to add wood when it was getting low. You had to open the damper if you wanted the heat to increase. You closed the damper to shut down the fire.

My son was in kindergarten. At that time kindergarten was just a half day. I had to take him to school around noon. That meant he had to eat his lunch before then. I ramped up the fire to heat his lunch. Please remember that this was fifty years ago and there were no microwaves at that time. After his lunch was hot, I had to cool off the stove so that I dared to leave it to make the trip to school.

That stove was our heat as well.

The old wood burning furnace was removed and we had not yet replaced it with an oil burning one. I found that I enjoyed it once how learned how to run it.

After chores at night my husband opened the oven door and propped his feet up on it to get warm. We used that stove for more than six months. It had to go when they began to fix the kitchen.

That stove made the kitchen too warm when they needed to replaster part of the wall.

I learned real quick that cooking in the old days took a lot of time. The good part was that I could keep my meals warm with the warming section of the stove. There was always hot water as well because there was reservoir on the side of the wood box.

Of course, there was maintenance.

The ashes had to be removed and carried outside. They were hot so you had to be careful where you put them. You did not want to start a fire.

I made most everything on that wood stove. At Thanksgiving I did not dare to try to cook a turkey because I could not be sure to keep the oven at the temperature that I needed. I opted for pork chops because they did not take as long to cook. Grandma was sick that year so the family did not get together. Her sister was there to help her. I learned to make fried apples from her sister. They were so good that I have continued to make them ever since.

I had no refrigerator. I used the coolness of the cellar to keep things cold. My husband brought milk from the farm every night so that we had fresh milk. I still had food in my mother-in-law’s freezer so I could pick it up and bring it up to cook. I was careful what I bought. My fresh things had to be able to stay out of a refrigerator.

When I think back, I wonder how I ever managed. I was a city girl with no country experience. I simply had to learn so that we could live up here. I had previously lived in a mobile home that we had sort of outgrown with our two children. Each of the children needed their own room.

We also needed a functioning bedroom.

It took some fixing, but at last we were able to sleep upstairs. Beds were moved and we began sleeping in the only room in the upstairs that had a full ceiling. The roof had leaked so plaster had fallen down in most of the bedrooms. Our first bedroom is now the upstairs bathroom.

We did not put that in until the children were grown. By then I was weary of running downstairs and around the house to get to the bathroom. You know, old people have to get up at night!

FRIED APPLES

Cut five or six apples into slices and put into a pan with a little bit of butter. Cook slowly until they are soft. Add cinnamon and a little sugar. They are ready to enjoy! This makes a great side dish with pork.

Ann Swanson writes from her home in Russell, Pa. Contact at hickoryheights1@verizon.net.