Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
We would sit around the fire at night of course. The fireplace was the only heat we had for the house, and we would sit around it. We would get a lot of rich pine, you know, and then get the fire to blazing. Then my mom and dad would tell us stories about Christmas and Christ’s birthday and why we had it. We enjoyed that, of course.
—Mary Ann Hollifield – A Foxfire Christmas
I love the cozy image Mary Ann’s memories evoke. Sounds like a wonderful Christmas tradition.
Pap told me stories of his family having only a fireplace for heat and to cook. He said when they got a woodstove they really thought they had moved up in the world. It put out better heat and no one had to bend over to cook on it.
Last night’s video: Finally! You Get to Meet Matt’s Daddy – Papaw Tony.
Tipper
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I loved the fireplace in my childhood home. Many memories are of sitting so close to the flames when it was frigid outside. Sometimes I would get so near that I would be burning up on my front side but my hindquarters would still be cold when it was below zero. Red places would come up on my skin that was exposed that we called “fire blossoms”. Has anyone else heard of them? Often we would heat a brick to wrap in flannel to warm our bed near our feet. It would have been nice to have known then that if you throw pinecones into the fire they will cause pretty blue flames to shoot up. Also, I made the mistake more than once to back up to the fire to get toasty warm but stand a bit to long and when I sat down then it would burn my bottom!! You would think I would have learned the first time, right?
I grew up in a house heated by fireplaces and the oven in the kitchen. The house was built around 1900 and had an entrance hallway with stairs to bedrooms above and a door opening to the ‘front room’. From the front room you passed into the dining room then into a small room with a kitchen table then into the kitchen. Generally, we kept a fire only in the dining room, keeping the living room door closed, but the door to the small room and the kitchen stayed open. On holidays or when we expected company, we lit a fire in the living room and opened the door to the dining room.
After I turned 13, we got a Siegler oil heater and a water heater. The oil heater was placed in the dining room which then became the sitting room. Before the water heater we heated pots of water on the stove for baths. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven when I could run a hot bath and steep in it ’til the water cooled and I turned into a prune.
All of my childhood Christmas memories include a coal fire in the fireplace and sitting around it before bedtime listening to stories the grownups told.
I lived in that house until I was 23 years old. My Pa and a brother died there. Afterwards, it was too depressing and the bedrooms upstairs too cold for my 65 year old mother; so I bought a small house in a newer neighborhood where she spent the next 20 years.
I have lived in a place where often I cooked on a fireplace. And I do know the feeling of being rich when we finally got a woodstove. Needless to say I kept a year round tan on my face from the fireplace. lol!
An open fireplace and naked spuds baked in the coals is pretty much the story of my early years.
When I was a very small child, my paternal grandparents lived in a very old house that had a fireplace in every room—of course, the only source of heat, except for was a very small space heater in the added-on bathroom. This bathroom, along with running water, had been added to this house by enclosing a portion of its wraparound porch. There was an outhouse on the property, which, of course, was never used once the bathroom was added to this house. My granny always said they turned this house into a mansion when they added running water, a bathroom and a wet kitchen sink. She had never before cooked in a kitchen that had a wet sink not lived in a house with running water, much less hot and cold water. The two things I remember most about spending the night with them in the wintertime was standing in front of the fire to get warm and then run to jump in the bed that had several quilts on it to keep you warm all night. They eventually saved enough money to build a new house which didn’t have any fireplaces—my granny always said her dream house would be small enough for a modern gas floor furnace to heat the entire house, have running water and a closet in each room—their new house fulfilled her dream.
Wonderful cozy memories !!!
And wonderful to “meet” Papaw Tony !!!
There’s nothing like a real wood burning fireplace. I miss the smell of the wood, the crackling sounds it made and the coziness of the warmth it provided.
I enjoyed your interview with Matt’s dad. Matt definitely is a lot like Papaw Tony in so many ways. I also loved seeing Katie interview you and Matt. Y’all are such a cute, loving couple:)
These days, my fireplace is the one I get via my television provider – they have a channel they play of a fireplace they ‘run’ during the holiday season – with sound, so one can hear it snapping and cracking; see the flames ‘dancing’ and watch some hands throw more wood on it every so often, or give the chunks of wood a ‘poke.’ I do find some ‘comfort’ in seeing and hearing this as I sit and read in the evening even if it is not the real thing – the memories can still come for a ‘visit’ of when it was real.
It was so nice meeting Matt’s dad last night! I am so grateful for the help he’s giving to the flood torn folks.
I remember sitting on my grandpa’s knee one day when I was about 6 years old. He said “You’re a very smart girl. Always make sure that all that comes out of your mouth is gold so you could take it to the bank. Don’t say too much but just listen. You can learn more with your mouth closed and your ears open than the other way round. ” About a year later he passed on.
I also remember him giving me a very small woven fondant basket one Easter. He said the Easter bunny left it for me . I thought it was beautiful. So I grabbed grandpa’s hand and said we had to go and find the bunny so I could say thank you. We went out to the woods behind his house and looked and looked for that bunny. Grandpa said that Easter bunnies were very shy so we might not find it. I made him tell me what it looked like and he said it was large and white, with one grey ear that flopped over. Finally we got back to the house because grandpa said he was sure that he had said thank you to the bunny.
We had a woodstove in the kitchen and a woodstove in yhe living room. The pipe ran up in the middle room up stairs. Believe me it didn’t keep it warm up there. We’ve never had a fire place but they are beautiful and warm. My husband’s sister had one.
terrific lighting on the papaw tony video! he sure looks like matt—and if you scroll through with the slider at the bottom to fast forward, you’ll see right away how he barely moves a muscle through the whole thing, other than his mouth!
When I was growing up we lived in a house heated by two fireplaces. In that house, I got a little too close to the flames while trying to warm my backside and caught my dress on fire. We didn’t have hotdogs or marshmallows to roast but we ‘capped’ many dishpans of popcorn and baked taters for a late-evening snack on those open fires.
I watched you interview Papaw Tony and I could have picked him as Matt’s daddy out of a group of 100 men. That’s what I call a spitting image.
Wow, when Papa Tony’s face appeared, what a handsome man, and I saw Matt’s eyes immediately. So nice to meet Papa Tony, and hear his stories:) God bless!
We never had a fireplace. We had a good old cast iron wood stove to heat our big old house. Daddy worked nights, he’d get that fire a roaring when he got in. All of us kids would get up to a nice warm morning and get ready for school. We had a long piece to walk to school, it would get so cold by time we would get to school we wish to have stayed by daddy’s warm fire. There were mornings that fire died out. Talk about cold bare feet on the floor, it sure was. I can’t remember when we got a different heat, furnace or whatever source for the houses we rented and lived in but I’d say that old wood stove was the coziest and most heartwarming. So nice to meet Mr. Pressley. You could see hints of Matt’s personality in him, for sure. Y’all stay warm and remember to have a safe and Happy New Year. God bless everyone today, tomorrow and always.
I grew up with only a wood stove to heat our small home. It was made by my dad out of a 55 gallon barrel. He worked at an iron and metal scrap yard—so he probably got many parts to use there. He put a big, metal door in front, a small door in back to take ashes out, and a heavy grate inside—and he made a metal stand for it with legs tall enough so he didn’t have to bend over much to feed the fire. It kept our living room nice and toasty and the bedrooms and kitchen warm enough. Back then, I never thought anything about how creative my dad was. We didn’t have much, but he always made sure we were warm and fed. I really enjoyed meeting papaw Tony last evening. He seemed so sweet. I also loved watching Katie interview you and Matt. Looking forward to the next videos. Have a great day!
A good fireplace just adds something special to a home. I enjoyed watching the video of Matt’s father. His manner of speaking and his facial expressions reminded me so much of Matt.
I enjoyed your interview with Matt’s Daddy, especially his talk of the changes at the paper mill. I worked production jobs for 38 years at Michelin. I was two weeks shy of being 22 years old when I started. I saw many changes in those years, not only with some of the machines, a big change in the lower level of management, but also in details to quality. When I started, the ones in lower level management worked their way up the ladder, now they are hired off the street and have a college degree. Before I retired my last supervisor (Richard) made this comment to me “ I wish I knew as much about the machinery and the department as Terry ( the one he replaced) did.” My answer was while you were in college reading a book, Terry was on the floor running the jobs in the department, that book didn’t teach you anything about these jobs. He said you old folks tell it like it is, y’all don’t hold nothing back! From what I understand in talking with some of the older ones still there, it is only getting worse.
I do like a wood fire in a fireplace. When we were still somewhat newly weds, our getaway trips were to go to a state park in the spring and stay in their 1930’s rustic cabins. One of the attractions was the fireplace. I would stop in the woods of the national forest along the way and collect some big pine knots just for the bright flames. (Was not a crime then. Don’t know about now.) One thing I learned the hard way. Make sure your fire is well behind the “throat” of the fireplace or you will get a room full of smoke. (Instead of “throat” the accurate word might well be “breast”.) I like the picture even if there isn’t light enough to see much detail. Just looking at it you know why around the fire is a good place for scary stories.
My grandparents had a fireplace and an Ashley woodstove. On special occasions, granny would have pawpaw make a real fire in the fireplace when I spent the night. Sometimes we would have popcorn in the evenings. It was such a special time because I was the only that would spend the night
My dad’s grandparents had a potbelly stove in the living room and an outhouse. When we visited at Christmas we would all stay in the living room where it was warm. Loved seeing Papaw Tony!
Nothing like sitting by a fireplace cozy and warm reading a good book.
I do miss having a fireplace. There’s something comforting about a warm fire in the hearth.
we had a woodstove with a blower on it and my dad could get a fire roaring so hot that if you were sitting in the leaving room where the stove was you would want to open the front door to cool things off–but he had to get it that hot in order to keep icicles from forming in the bedroom and kitchen. Of course when it was time or preparing meals the kitchen was plenty warm from all the burners and the oven going at the same time. From time to time for a special treat my dad would have mama wrap potatoes in foil and then either she or he would place them amongst the coals which would produce some of the best baked potatoes I have ever eaten….we had little money but it was special things like that that helped to make us feel like we were far from being poor.
gaylia, I enjoy reading your comments, just like today, many times they remind me of my childhood we were also poor, and Daddy would sometimes cook something in the fireplace or on his wood heater, it was a factory made heater but very similar to Tipper’s heater. Like Alabama’s song says “we were poor, but around our house the grass was green, we were walking in high cotton.” My parents saw to it that there was always plenty of love.
It was such a joy to meet Matt ‘s dad! Thank you! Praying for many blessings for you and the entire Pressley family❤❤
When I was growing up my parents heated our home with a fireplace and a kerosene Seglier heater. One of the fondest memories of my childhood is of laying in the floor at night beside of my Daddy in front of the fireplace eating peanuts the we had grown and parched. Daddy would rather lay in the floor than sit in a chair, he never owned a recliner. After I was grown, he closed off the front of the fireplace and installed a free standing wood heater and heated their home with it. We had our own woods and for the last 10 years of his life I cut ever stick of wood he burned. I kept about one year of wood cut ahead for my parents. Wood will heat you up multiple times if you cut, split and haul your own wood! Today’s picture could be of my grandparents sitting around a big coal heater at night in their bedroom reading their Bibles, picking out black walnuts and pecans or grandaddy reading a Progressive Farmer magazine. They never owned a TV and I don’t remember them playing a radio. Another childhood memory is of going with grandaddy in the fall of the year through the woods and of him taking the sack he used when he picked cotton and filling it up with rich pine-lightered to us. He would take each of us an apple and we would cup our hands and drink water from the creek. Always remember to drink upstream of the cow or mule! No child ever loved a garandparent more than I loved my Grandaddy Kirby. I hope I am leaving my grandsons with some good memories of me and they love me half as much as I loved my Grandaddy Kirby. We lived beside of him and I spent ever minute I could of my childhood with him.
Isn’t that a wonderful memory.