Ward W. O'Hara: Collectibles for a hot old time
Ward W. O'Hara was a founder of the Agricultural & Country Living Museum that bears his name, located at Emerson Park in Owasco.
Ward also wrote s for The Citizen for a number of years, and was known as "The Storyteller." Some of his most enduring s are now being republished monthly.
The following originally appeared in The Citizen on Sunday, April 23, 1995. (Editor's note: Aside from minor edits for style and grammar, the column has been reprinted as submitted.)
As far as heating stoves is concerned — parlor stoves, wood burning stoves, cast iron pot belly stoves — the time had come for the fire to go out. But grandma's old black iron kitchen range still had to keep a fire every day to do the cooking and baking and heat water, too.
All that started soon after the first quarter of the 1800s was over and the fireplaces with their beehive brick ovens for baking gave way to stoves.
Many people took down their parlor stove around the first of May and moved them to the back room or shed until cold weather came in the fall. Carrying out the stove pipe while trying not to spill soot out of it was a ticklish job, and there was heck to pay if you did. Probably this was no worse than the cussing granddad did when he tried to put that stubborn stovepipe back together next fall.
We dare to say there are people living today who remember having to take down the stove in the living room come spring.
A fine example of the old fashioned heating stove stands a full 5 feet tall on its four legs at Cayuga County's Agricultural Museum. It came, in 1973, from Bill Howard's barn in Scipio where the Janessen brothers' Green Hill huge dairy complex is today. We wonder if Bill remembers helping load the 300-pound monster on the writer's pickup. These were quite ornate stoves and gave out good heat, but the writer remembers sitting around one on a howling cold night with his front side nearly roasting from the cherry red fire box while his tail end was cold. We suppose on the average, he must have felt about right.
In the blacksmith and woodworking shop, a wood-burning chunk stove about 3 feet long, standing 32 inches from the floor, furnishes a wondrous heat. The boys at the museum once said they couldn't use it because it gave off too much heat. Too much wood in the stove was the problem. Granddad always said it was best to have a big stove because you could build a small fire in it, but with a small stove you couldn't build a big fire. We guess some of us have never learned that we could build a small fire in a big stove, but our granddads knew it. There are few heating stoves that will put out more heat than that low-down chunk stove does at the ag museum, with a 24 inch log.
Going into the country store at the agricultural museum, you are greeted by a solid cast iron pot belly stove standing full breast high. It isn't hooked up. This stove was primarily a coal burning heater, although it could burn wood. It came from the Lehigh Valley Railroad station in Locke, gratis, from Buzz Hewitt in 1974. It is a wonderful addition to a well-stocked old-time grocery. You can just imagine a couple old codgers setting on nail kegs playing checkers before it.
The most beloved stove of all at the ag museum is the old black iron wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen. Without even a temperature gauge here, grandma could bake bread, cake, cookies and pies in the oven. She got hot water from the reservoir on the end of that old stove and gave you holy heck if you failed to replenish its volume when you dipped some out.
It seems rather ridiculous to think the writer ever took a bath in a washtub on Saturday night only, in front of the oven door of a kitchen stove, just about like the one at the museum. He most certainly didn't weigh 259 pounds then.
The flat irons grandma heated on this stove are still on it with all her cast iron kettles, fry pans and other cookware. Many can remember splitting the chunks into smaller pieces with the limb wood that was carried to the wood box by the kitchen stove. That was one of the first chores children got, keeping the wood box full and some kindling wood on hand also. How many remember using dry corn cobs for kindling?
The four old-time stoves with three of them working were donations from generous divers. Few other places can show them.
The ag museum is a credit to tourism from far and wide and is a gift from Cayuga County, museum directors, and all those who have contributed so generously to it.
The Ward W. O'Hara Agricultural & Country Living Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. For more information, call (315) 252-7644.
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