The Farm House in Winter
Written February 16,1973 by William (Bill) Theodore Packard(1902-1975)
In the farmhouse in Winter the kitchen was the heart of the place with the cook stove always hot and cooking going on, or with clothes boiling for washing, steam rising and keeping the humidity at a healthy level. Near the stove a box full of dry wood. Behind the stove are rows of pegs for hanging outdoor garments where they would be dry and warm; over them a shelf for caps and mittens, and on the floor a row of boots, etc..
The dining table was in the center of the room in winter, and here, in the evenings, we read or studied while father read the weekly Springfield Republican and mother sewed or read the Youth’s Companion. Another stove in the living room helped keep most of the house warm. We did not mind a few cold corners in those days.
The outer door of the kitchen opened into the old back room, once a summer kitchen. Here was Father’s workbench and where the wash tubs were used. Here also stood the cream separator in the later days. At butchering time a large old table here was used for cutting up whole hogs which had been slaughtered the day before in the woodshed into which this old summer kitchen opened. Quarters of beef also were cut up here. Here, one winter, when father had badly cut a foot and could not get out in the snow for some weeks, he built us boys a pair of “rippers”, double sleds for coasting. They proved to be the fastest ones about at the time.
Passing from this back kitchen into the woodshed on the right was a brick arch for a large kettle to boil soap, hog’s feed and heating water for butchering those same hogs. The rest of the right half of the shed was for a wood pile. At the far end sled length wood was piled and here was work for stormy days and winters, the wood after cutting up being piled in the end near the house. The south end of the shed was open and sleighs, buggies, Etc, which run out when we drew in wood, so we drove right into the shed to unload the wood. In the center of the shed was the hog roll for drawing up hogs or cattle when butchering. Much work was performed in that shed.
