Elmwood

Elmwood in a Queen Atlantic

Now this is a stick of unsplit elm, damn near taking up the entire firebox, just added to a bed of elmwood coals.

Elm is the perfect burning wood for this lowery spring. Despite what has been written about elm burning "like churchyard mold," I have found that if you cut your elm standing dead, and when the bark has just begun to slip, but not yet falling off in sheathes, and you cut it stove length and put under cover, you'll have the perfect cheery spring fire, enough to drive away the dampness, but not enough to drive you out!

In 1976, we joined Bertha O'Brien, her granddaughter Grace, and their boarder Leland Smith, a retired teamster who had spent the better part of his life doing the field work for farmers in the area. Bertha had lived in the house her entire adult life and was about 94 at the time. She was in charge of the cooking. It was a ham dinner, from one of their own pigs. The only cooking stove in the old low posted cape was the Home Clarion, which had been cranking since early morning, turning out pies, biscuits, and finally the ham itself. The kitchen, of course was in the ell, connecting the main house to the barn with a series of pass through rooms, each with it's particular function. Next to the kitchen, was Leland's unheated bedroom, and beyond was the entry, the woodshed, and finally the barn itself.

The idea to locate the kitchen in the ell was not part of the original design of our 18th and early 19th century houses. Initially, fireplaces were the source of warmth and where food was cooked. When cast iron stoves were introduced, the enormous amount of heat that they produce
motivated the construction of an attached structure, one room deep, so that with windows and perhaps a door on either side, a good cross draft could be had.

Well, no amount of a cross draft was enough to knock down the heat that Easter Sunday. That year it was particularly hot, well over 80°f outside, and with the white birch, and maple cooking our meal, it had to have surpassed 110° in that kitchen. And that's where we ate, the food from their larder, at the semi round oilcloth covered table, Leland in his chair nearest the door, followed by the guests, then Bertha and Grace.

- Jay Robinson, 2017