I have a lot of pleasant memories of Daddy putting up the stove and pipe just before cold weather. I remember him saying “around the tenth of January, we’ll have a General Thaw.” He told the truth! It used to Snow alot, and it was froze from Christmas till Springtime, except for the warm spot around January 10th, and we sat by the warm fire. But me and John would play football in the Snow. By the time he would turn around, after hiking the ball, I would be gone. I was fast as Greased Lightening. I miss the Good Ole Days. …
—Ken Roper
I’ve read accounts of folks taking down their woodstove during warm weather and putting it up during cold weather, but I’ve never known anyone who moved the stove in and out. All the woodstoves I’ve been around stayed right where they were whether the cold wind was blowing or the sun was shining it’s hot beams across the land.
Houses used to be so small that one can see why it would have been nice to have the extra floor space in summer.
We sure have enjoyed our woodstove this winter. We always do, but seems like we’ve set around it more often this year now that The Deer Hunter is home full time.
Last night’s video: A Year in Appalachia 2023.
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Not being from Appalachia I lived in Flagstaff Arizona and had a wood stove that I sure miss. My best memory is going to visit my great grandmother in the winter in Prescott Arizona in the ‘50’s and she had a stove in the middle of her small house. There were white fire brick tiles with holes in them that got red hot that heated the whole house. I also recall thick quilts and feather beds where the kids would roll to the middle while sleeping. Good memories. Thank you for sharing your memories and may God bless Ms Tipper and her family
We have a wood cook stove with chrome trim and a huge firewood box. It’s made by the Amish. It heats up the entire house and sometimes it nearly runs us out of the house with all that heat. It has a big reservoir in the back that heats water and keeps the humidity at a good level in the house. You need that humidity to hold the heat in the air.
We heated our old place by a cast iron wood stove. It was so nice to feel that heat radiating and warming us to the bones, Head to toe. Daddy kept the fire burning and we were glad for that. Beautiful memories. Would love to have a place with a stove like that again. Just to feel that warm cozy feeling and evoke some of those memories too.
I’ve so enjoyed reading the memories of simpler times with wood stoves and fireplaces. As a city kid living in the city of Atlanta as a child, my fondest childhood memories were made while visiting my grandparents’ sustenance farm in NW Georgia. They lived a very Appalachian lifestyle! There was a fireplace in the kitchen where Grandmother would cook, before my time, and in the living room. I do recall there being a wood stove in the living room, but not every year. They may have waited until the first four grandchildren, born within 3.5 years with me the oldest, got older and touching or falling on the wood stove was not such a concern in the small room. On wintry nights, Granddaddy, named Blue, would go out to the corn crib in the barn and bring back popping corn. We all shelled it and he popped it in the wire shaker basket over the fire. Grandmother melted lots of butter, probably freshly churned, and poured it over the popped corn in a large dish pan! Of course lots of salt was applied! We grandkids enjoyed the savory snack with cold Coca Cola in the small green bottles, stored on the back porch in the wooden Coca Cola crates, purchased just for our visit! No TV to distract us in the small four room farm house, but oh the fun we had! Today, I enjoy huge roaring fires in our masonry fireplace in our den! My husband’s hobby is cutting firewood on our property, a forest of hardwoods, a rewarding respite from his desk work. I’m trying to perfect popping corn with my mesh shaker basket for my grandchildren. Maybe I need to buy a dish pan! Blessings to you, Tipper! I will email you my article on grandparenthood. It surely is “GRAND”.
So cozy !!!❤️
I never had a wood stove, but my aunt used to have a roaring fire going in her fireplace. I would sit in that room, watching the fires glimmering, I was mesmerized by the colors. There is nothing more comforting than that experience. Good wishes on Granny and safe deliveries for your two grand babies.
I have never heard of moving or taking down a woodstove when warmer weather arrived. I agree there is nothing like the warmth a woodstove brings. As I mentioned in the past, my uncle had a country store with a woodstove and there was many a conversation sitting on wooden drink crates around it. My uncle was a fine man and with his wife helping him out, I don’t ever recall any ugly chat going on, but folks would come in and sit and talk about what was going on in the neighborhood like who was sick, or a new baby or who had just moved close by. Gossiping I guess, but in a good way. There were two or three chairs for the ladies also to sit in, but you didn’t see as many ladies as men.
Gloria, I well remember the men of the community sitting around the old pot bellied stove on turned up wooden coke cola crates “jawing” with one another. I also remember men sitting on crates and an old church pew in the back service area of the Honea Path Western Auto store watching a baseball game on Saturday afternoon while their wives shopped. Like you said nothing dirty would be said, women and children were respected. Tipper needs to write about her experience at the original Mast General store, particularly the large wood stove and the wood/glass drawers in the post office. I know of an old feed and seed store at Laurens, SC that also has and still uses one of those large wood stoves.
The men gathered to visit while their wives did the weekly or sometimes monthly shopping. The men were catching up on the news – not gossiping. The Scriptural reference to that can be found in the 31st chapter of Proverbs. “Her husband is known by the elders as they sit by the city gates.” The men sat near the city gates to get the news first as people came from other areas.
We just built a fire 2 night’s ago. I had already split us a box of ceder to start the fire with. I just had it waiting. The warmth of the heat from the fire felt so good. There’s a big difference in a central heat and air and burning wood. It will go out since no one is here to keep it going through the day. I remember the wood stove at home when I was a child. It sat almost in the middle of the floor.We had one in the kitchen to cook on. Aw those days. Yes it was hard but memorable.
It was a major job each fall to put up our stove. The stove was stored in the little hall closet during the summer. The furniture had to moved around, making room. We burnt coal, not wood. Living room was toasty warm other rooms cold.
My grandparents and my parents had wood heaters set up in their homes when I was growing up. My dad would take his down in the summer, but my Grandaddy would leave his up year round. We love sittin around our fireplace enjoying its warmth while we read the Bible & sit around and talk like you guys do around y’all’s wood stove in your basement. Your posts like this one takes me back to a time I wish I would have been raised up in. Thanks for sharing.
I’m warming up next to ours now. My husband is so thoughtful. He places a large stone on top, heats it up, wraps it in a towel and puts it in the bed next to my feet at night. I guess sometime along the 40 years of our marriage he got tired of my cold feet on his legs.
As a child I remember that my parents moved the wood stove out when warm weather came and it was put back in when the nights started to be chilly. I think my daddy cleaned it up good and the pipe usually needed replacing when it was time to put it back up. Does anyone remember that the new stove pipe put off a strange odor when it was first heated up? Taking the heater out in warm weather did leave more room. My mother liked to re-arrange the room and clean everything really good. I hadn’t thought of this in years. Thanks for the memories, Tipper.
We took down the wood heater in the living room in late Spring or early Summer and put it back up in the Fall. It spent the Summer in the smoke house. We also kept a “foot tub” (a halve bushel bucket) of water on top to add moisture to the room unless we needed the top for a pot of pintos. It seems that from about 6 years of age until I was about 15 I spent my winters cutting and carrying wood for the heater and cook stove as well as coal for the two heaters at school. That along with milking and feeding livestock was designed to keep me busy and out of trouble. HA HA!!! I was always up to something. My sister was kept busy watching and tattling on me. I had so many chores I had to skip half days of school to get in some rabbit and squirrel hunting.
Growing up here in North west Georgia we heated our home with wood. We were blessed because our family was in the lumber pallet business. So we didn’t have to go out into the woods and cut wood. But we heated with a Wonder Wood Stove and there was moving it when spring came. It’s one thing I miss is heating with wood.
Daddy never removed our pot-belly stove when the cold weather was over. He replaced the pipes every fall as a safety precaution. After months of non-stop raging coal fires the pipes must have shown damage and wear. When daddy got ready to install new pipes most of us kids found a reason to go outside. This normally calm and gentle man got as bent out of shape as the pipes that made a crude angle to reach the outside. The stove not only served as our only source of heat but it was where mom cooked our soup beans. Nothing tasted any better than a tater roasted in the hot ashes or a pan of fresh shelled popcorn with churned butter.
Well, we gave our wood stove to our nephew years ago. I still miss that kind of heat and I had to cook on it in the Blizzard of ’93. But, as you mention, it took up a lot of room with a stone hearth and keeping things away from the stove. By the way, I have to ask again, does anybody use stove polish anymore? And where – if it still exists – might it be found?
If you have the internet, google “stove polish” and it will show you lots of places you can still get it.
If you don’t have internet, look to Walmart, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Lehman’s (in Ohio), and tons of other places still carry it.
I would love to have a wood stove. The older I get, the more I want to go back in time with less conveniences. Your blog & channel helps me to escape this modern life that I feel like I’m stuck in. I’m looking forward to a whole new year with big changes & joys with those grandbaby boys! Prayers for Granny!
Memories Around the Old WoodStove
Oh such great memories of being around the wood stove and the cook stove in the kitchen in the wintertime. I can just smell those biscuits my Mother would make, they just taste better when they were cooked in the old cookstove in the kitchen. All of us gathering around the big kitchen table, passing the biscuits, and that wonderful bowl of gravy made in the cast iron pan, my Mother’s apple butter, peach butter or pumpkin butter……what a wonderful memory….as I sit here with tears in my eyes.
In the living room, around the wood stove at night time especially after supper…..such fond memories.
Daddy picking on his banjo, singing the old mountain songs, all of us children joining in, picking or singing………my favorite was when Daddy would lead the songs and we would all do the harmony parts with him and my Mother’s wonderful voice, strong & pure. Family Memories are wonderful, keeping our loved ones alive in memories and voice. I never sing a song without thinking of them all.
Randy is right about the wood heat warming you up several times….cutting, hauling loading and unloading, and then burning. I laughed at that! I remember helping my Gramma and Papa cut and haul wood and the wood heater. We cooked on it too, and boy was it good! Gramma would take down her wood stove in hot weather so we would have room for shelling peas and beans and grandchildren visiting during summer months when school was out. I love the smell of a wood heater or stove burning wood, so much that if I pass by a house and see wood smoke coming out, I slow down real slow (if traffic allows) so I can enjoy the smell of the wood burning. I even have a Woodwick candle that smells like burning wood but I can’t remember the name of it right now. Once again, Tipper you have brought back memories and I cherish them. Love and prayers to all of you and Granny and Little Mamas too.
Hi Kathy. The candle I have is called “fireside” there is also one with 3 layers called “Trilogy”. I buy them at Walmart. Hope this helps.
I LOVE woodstoves – they are the best heat there is. We always had one when I was growing up; I can remember coming downstairs to get dressed for school next to the woodstove, and the best place to take a nap was on the floor between the woodstove and the wall. We also had my great-grandmother’s wood cookstove in the kitchen and fired it up when the weather was really cold and cooked on it when the power was off. It was one of those with the firebox on one side so you had to keep turning and rotating anything you were roasting or baking.
We now have my grandmother’s woodstove (really more of a fireplace insert), and once the blowers kick on it will heat the entire house as high as 80 degrees. I love being in the room with it and my grandson now loves to bring his toys into the room and play in front of it.
Everyone took their wood heaters apart, took them outside and clean them thoroughly. Parts for them were available if any had rusted or burned bad enough to effect their safety. Usually the stovepipe was replaced. The firebricks would burn away too, especially if you burned coal, but they would last a good deal longer than the pipe.
We actually washed the heater. We had gravity water with pretty good force so we could eliminate every speck of ash and soot. That meant that it would rust quickly if we didn’t get something on it to protect it as soon as it was dry. There were two methods we used to achieve that purpose. Stove black (same as stove polish) if we had it or grease. Stove blacking worked similar to seasoning your cast iron cookware. It burns on a coating that prevents rusting. Stove blacking is more aesthetically pleasing than burnt on grease or oil.
The stove then went on the porch or some other dry place until cold weather invaded again. While it was out the chimley or flue had to be cleaned and inspected. We cleaned our flues with a lightweight chain barried from old Bossie. We’d climb on the roof and drop the end of the chain down the flue. We’d swing the chain around in fashion similar to the way we used to jump rope with two people turning and two jumping a single rope (I don’t know what it’s called) only you don’t need the second person below. Anyway the chain would knock off whatever had accumulated in the flue over the winter and it would drop into a trap below.
We didn’t wait until the dead of winter to reinstall the wood heater. It’s first firing had to be done with all the doors and winders wide open. The “burning off” of the blacking and the coating on the new stovepipe would run you out of the house so a warm fall day was preferred. The “burning off” lasted only a few minutes but that awful smell stayed for several hours.
Our wood cookstove had to be cleaned too. That had to happen in one day as we needed it to eat. It was a big cumbersome thing with six eyes and a copper reservoir at one end. All made of cast iron. It could be taken apart into manageable pieces but that added time for disassembly and reassembly. Luckily Daddy had three strong boys. The girls carried out all the smaller pieces while us boys carried out the rest intact as much as possible. Unlike the heater much of the cookstove was enameled so the blacking only had to happen to the top and the connection to the stovepipe. However, there were many more nooks and crannies were ash and soot could accumulate. All in one day! And the burning off had to happen too!
Cleaning the cookstove didn’t have to happen annually. Mommy kept it as clean as she could. Daddy made her a soot rake to aid in cleaning the ash bin and the air passages around the oven. I remember her wiping the top of the stove with wax paper after using it. It too smoked a little but it left a gunbarrel blue color behind. New and Blue!
That’s pretty much my recollection of wood stoves for heat, Cousin Ed. One thing you left out was the cover that went over the hole when the exhaust pipe had been taken down. You know, the one with the flexible prongs of the side of the plate-like cover that would hold the cover on by friction and force.
We used a “lunch bucket” slid inside the thimble. It is a #10 can. They fit perfectly in the thimble. The ladies who worked at the school cafeteria would rinse them out and and put them on the back stoop of the kitchen. Kids would carry them home. They were the handiest thing you could have around the home and the farm. But yes cousin Robert, I know exactly what you are talking about.
I wish we had a wood stove! I can imagine how warm and cozy it is to sit around it and talk.
Sitting by the fire with your favorite people never gets old.
I think you folks might get some snow! Looks like we will too. Happy days! Shoveling never bothers me.
I agree with Glenda. I loved your year in review and am looking forward to this year. New babies and such. I pray for Granny. I was so happy to see her singing with Paul.
My dad’s parents had a pot bellied stove. They had no plumbing to speak of and they had an out house. I remember going there at Christmas. That pot bellied stove in the living room sure gave off the heat.
Tipper thank you for sharing your story above about the wood stove. I love the wood stove, my adopted parents had a wood stove in their basement, and when the power went off, and it was snow on the ground, we would head for the basement to keep warm. My mother would put a pot of pinto beans on the wood stove, and they were absolutely delicious. And she always kept a pan of cornbread made for daddy every day, he loved cornbread and buttermilk. I miss both of my parents terribly. May God bless you all.
Snow is nice as long as you can sit at home and don’t have to get out and keep going in it. For 38 years I had to go in it at all hours of the day and night. The snow in the south has a lot of moisture in it and there will often be ice underneath it. It often starts out as freezing rain and sleet. When the roads are scrapped and the snow begins to melt, the water runs across the road turning the roads into a sheet of ice during the below freezing temperatures at night. I often drove the unscraped side roads and stayed off the main highway because of this. My cousin lived many years at Colorado Springs and would tell of going out and just brushing the dry powder snow off her car with her hand. She would also tell of coming back home to SC and “freezing to death” in 35 degree weather because of the difference in humidity. From the forecast I saw last night Tipper may not get any snow, it looked like it might be more east of her. This is for the northerners that have moved south, it is mandatory that you go to the grocery store and buy milk and bread if there is a possibility of snow! I had enough of snow to last me for the rest of my life.
I grew up with a huge old Warm Morning stove that originally came out of a Methodist Church nearby. It didn’t have a jacket around it, just the flat steel that would get red hot when the fire was tramping snow. We often burned coal mixed with the wood and that made for dirty curtains. Daddy would roast peanuts on top of the stove in the winter and we cooked there too when the electricity went off. I miss the old stove and included it in a book I wrote about our farm and fight with the TVA.
Thanks Tipper for all you do.
To me there is nothing quite as satisfying and warming as the heat from a good wood stove.
I lived in several houses where the only heat was from wood stoves. I always thought people were crazy for not heating with wood because it used be the least expensive fuel, and they provided warmer heat than furnaces. Back then wood was cheap or free, and I remember the deep satisfaction of having eight cords of wood stacked and ready for the cold months. We never took our stoves down but instead in summer did the maintenance on the pipes and some years added a coat of fresh black paint. I miss those days around the stoves.
I grew up with a wood stove in the living room. It was the only heat we had unless mama was baking, and then the oven helped to keep the kitchen warm. Our house was tiny and had no doors between rooms to block the heat. I never remember being cold in the winter—except going to the outhouse—but we had quilts to sleep under, and sometimes electric blankets.
We have a wood stove in our basement. My husband likes to build a fire in it for any bitter cold nights because it keeps the upstairs floors nice and warm. Mainly, we just heat our cabin with an outdoor wood stove. It keeps us nice and cozy, and he only fixes the fire twice a day. I love just turning up the thermostat for warmth. However, I still think there’s nothing more relaxing and peaceful than sitting beside the wood stove—watching the flames dance around when he puts the screen on the door—and drinking hot coffee or chocolate, of course! We are expecting several inches of snow this weekend Tipper. I sure hope you get some too! Take care, keep warm, and prayers for your mama. I have had fun watching the blooper videos and your year ending one last night. ❤️
I did appreciate your 2023 video. I have watched it twice and remembered some but not all in the year gone by. It is going to be so exciting to watch the new videos that you will for sure share of your two new grandbabies. Another new generation and are Blessed to still have some of the old. Granny is gonna be something with the new ones, I can tell already. I also cannot wait to see the names Matt will give the boys. I don’t know who came up with the nick names of Katie and Corie but they do fit. Praying for Granny and for you to get more than a skiff of snow before the Spring thaw comes. Stay well and safe and let us also get ready for the new planting. God Bless.
A favorite memory of mine is going to Grandmomma Hart’s house in Holly Hill, SC. Big 2 story house that had no central heat or A/C. Fireplace in every room and in the kitchen was a pot bellied stove. She had an electric stove by that time (1955), but I loved that wood/coal stove.
My dream is to have a small house on about 35 acres and put a wood stove in it for heat. Open the doors and windows for A/C!
Peace,
John
John, I live on 33 acres on land in southern Greenville County, SC near the community of Princeton. I was raised in a small home that had wood heat and no A/C. My dream is to have a one room old style log cabin in the mountains with a good trout stream in front of it. I have been spoiled and would want electricity, inside plumbing and some A/C for these hot summers in the south. My sister lives in this house now and I live in a double wide mobile home (no where for a wood heater) on these 33 acres. I look back and wish I had tried to build some type of home, but we got by for many years on my one paycheck while my wife stayed home and raised our children instead of putting them in a nursery or daycare. I do not regret that.
that would be a lot of work. I just clean mine up really good and let it sit.
I have never known anyone to take down or move their wood stove The last wood stove Daddy had was heavy and once in place it was there to stay. His stove was very similar in appearance to Tipper’s stove but was still black. The size of it was called Mama Bear and this may be wrong but was made by a company located in Georgia that made three sizes of stoves. They were the Papa bear, Mama Bear, and Baby bear. All looked the same except for their size. The flat top made them easy to cook on. Daddy would often cook a pot of beans, soup or beef stew on his stove, and always had a cast iron kettle of water on the stove, no worries at all about cooking or having heat during winter storms and having no electricity. After his heart attack, I kept him and mother a years supply of wood cut ahead. Daddy wood scatter the ashes on his garden spot. I don’t think any thing feels as good as wood heat and will warm you up several times if you cut, haul, split and then carry and stack the wood at the house.
I love to sit by the wood stove. I love the warmth of wood heat. I never heard of moving it out in January. Interesting the things we all do.
Tipper, we both might get our much loved snow. They’re calling for us to get a couple of inches tomorrow. I surely hope so! I love snow. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but if it has to be cold it might as well snow!
Momma loved snow, she passed that to us and we have passed that love on to our kids too. I love to go outside and listen to the quietness of it snowing. So peaceful! It’s like everything is cleaned up with a blanket of snow.
Happy Friday! God bless all y’all!