Marvin C. Hoffer
Feb. 26, 1992
Lewistown, MT.
CORN COBS, COW CHIPS & THE OLD KITCHEN RANGE
The blizzard sank its bitter cold fingers into every crack and cranny of our house. The South Dakota prairie moaned and groaned under the massive white load of snow, banked to the eves. But, in MomÕs kitchen we all found our haven. There beside the old Monarch kitchen range, cast iron, black, huge. It was the focus of the many days and nights when intense cold tried to still life on the Prairie. We found its heat and warmth our lifeline to Spring, in the cold distant future.
In the corner of the kitchen, beside the stove was the "Mischt Box", manure box, by name and purpose. The Old Country German name for the fuel box was neatly banked with corn cobs, wood, mostly of green ash and various salvaged boards from buildings that melted into the Dakota earth, and cow chips in the years now history. Fuel on the Dakota Prairie was scarce as henÕs teeth, and only the frugal, the enterprising stayed warm and comfortable.
My grandparents on both sides of the family (Hoffer and Rieger), harkened from the Steppes of South Russia, north of the Black Sea, the Schwarz Meer, where fuel was a rare item. Coal was not available, so they in Russia, and on the Dakota Prairie, after they emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1890s, used the limited native resources. You either adapted to the environment, or you perished.
My mother, Maria Rieger Hoffer, as most prairie children of her era, quickly learned that she must contribute to sustaining life. Cattle and horses generated substantial "waste", fancy term for manure, which was frugally piled behind the sod barns. This was mixed with "slough hay", a tough, fibrous prairie grass, or straw, as it was spread in a small fenced area behind the barn. Two or three prancing horses were chased around the manure-grass mixture to thoroughly mix it. Hooves threw buckets of manure in the air as they raced around the barnyard chased by my nine-year-young mother barefoot in a print dress sewn of flour sack material.
Grandpa Rieger made a couple of dozen, or so, wood frames from scrap lumber. Each was about a foot square and 6-8 inches deep. These were laid in neat rows, into which my mother at age 9-10 shoveled the manure and grass mixture, patted it into neat squares, and left it to set and dry for hours in the hot July sun. As she lifted the frames, out slipped a perfect, more or less, brick of fuel. Remember that old Monarch setting in the kitchen? It had an appetite like a starved dinosaur.
During the summer hundreds of manure bricks were dried, then stacked into neat, circular piles, which looked like a brown hay stack from a distance. This allowed them to fully dry before winter. Much critical winter fuel was prepared in the heat of summer in this manner. Waste not, want not. Yep, little feet, toes, and hands were dirty with livestock manure, but they would be washed white in t he creek below the farm. Life was demanding, practical, and rewarding. The farm kids and young adults that fashioned the fuel bricks looked with pride at their accomplishments, glad that chore was done.
After the corn was hand-picked, ear by ear, and shelled, each cob was saved in a dry shed. These would be the start er fuel for the kitchen range, and the larger space heater in the living room. Cobs were also the favorite source of aromatic smoke for the smoke house in which the hams, sausage, bacon were slowly smoked to delicious taste. To live life on the Dakota Prairie you learned to use everything.
Before the dark night mantle was pulled over the white prairie, everyone carried in an armload of wood, boxes of cobs, and bricks of prairie fuel. The iron maw of the Old Monarch had to be fed , to heat the kitchen while Mom cooked and baked for a large family.
The kitchen was the center of our world during the long, harsh winter. It was the warmest place in the house, and there generally was something tasty around to eat as well. We played cards, drew picture on back of any old paper sacks, studied our reading, writing, and -rithmatic. Dad cut our hair and that of neighbors while we sat on the old pump organ stool, cobbled new soles on seven pairs of shoes, and we watched Spot ( my dog) and Blackie (our tom cat) lie side by side behind the warm stove. Mom set her bread t o raise on top of the stove warmer ovens, placed the milk on the range water reservoir to clabber from which mounds of fresh "cottage cheese" was gathered.
Dad had the chore or honor of starting the old kitchen range each morning while we all huddled beneath the heavy feather ticks. Many times the pail of drinking water setting on the old oak cupboard was frozen nearly solid. Cold? Yep, enough to freeze the hair on a brass monkey. Corn cobs, some wood, then warmth began to creep mighty slowly into the recess of our house.
Breakfast was a big meal to get us started into the world for another day. It included toast made on the stove top. Mom brightened the stove lid surface by polishing it with paper, then laid the homemade bread on it to toast to a gold-brown onto which she dropped homemade butter, colored with Watkins dandelion juice. On occasion she had homemade wild plum or chokecherry jam to top it off. Ah, my mouth drools even now, many decades later. Memory, thanks to memory.
A long day working in the snow and piercing cold generally resulted in frosted ears, fingers and toes, plus an overall chill, if I was lucky. The most comfortable and satisfying place I knew was sitting on the Old Monarch oven door. The dry heat penetrated through everything to the bone. A delicious warmth that chased the deep cold from my lanky frame.
Mom and Dad often walked to some neighbors to play cards, gab, and have some "lunch" at 10 PM. The only thing that precluded those evening hikes was a blizzard. Cold was excepted as part of living, so Mom bundled my youngest brother Carl into a pile of warmth and placed him in the apple box Dad lashed to the sled. Tucked into the midst of the bundle we called "Carly" was a rock or couple of bricks that had been warmed in the kitchen range oven and wrapped in a blanket. It radiated heat for some hours. Cheap, convenient. The rock and brick routine was commonly used on the cold nights for most of the family as we went to bed to search for sleep in a cold bed. The old house popped, creaked, and banged as the bitter cold, sometimes to -50F, plus wind, stressed the old timbers, and boards. Every nail was loose from decades of hard winters and flexing in the cold . A 5-lb. rock warmed in the oven, wrapped in large towels, laid at the feet of young lads under the feather quilts, or "feather ticks", made it tolerable. Ingenious, pure undiluted comfort. Thanks to corn cobs, wood, and cow chips.
The Old Monarch range required a bit of maintenance now and then. Nothing major, just timely cleaning of the chimney, carry out the ashes, and clean out the soot that accumulated inside the stove recesses. The stove is two stoves in one. The cast iron innards flexed and expanded with heat inside a larger sheet iron shell. The space between the innards and outards allowed heat to warm the water in the reservoir far from the fire box, and to wrap around the oven where the magic of yeasties, flour, and water resulted in golden-topped loaves of bread. There ainÕt many aromas that can beat fresh baked bread. Can you think of any?? Mom baked 6-8 loaves every 3-4 days to keep our stomachs at bay. Considering that there were s even of us, it kept the old oven hot most of the week.
The Monarch gave us best of service for over 30 years without a complaint. During those years it consumed tons of fuel, every bit of which had to be collected from the old homesteader tree claims, buildings in the throes of lying down for a rest on the prairie, corn sheller, and in years past, from Bossy, Bessy, and two teams of draft horses. The accumulation continued all spring and summer, right up to the first snowstorm. The Monarch must have consumed hundreds of tons of fuel over those 3-4 decades, and we must have hauled hundreds of pounds of ashes to the garden as fertilizer. In return we got warmth and heat when we needed it most, comfort, hot food, warm water for those Saturday night baths in the middle of the kitchen in a metal tub that accommodated only half of me at once in later years. It depended on which half I need to wash first.
We moved that heavy kitchen range out into the chicken coop after Dad died, and Mom moved into a large trailer home where the garden used to be, next to the old house. Sort of hated to do that to the Old Monarch, because it was almost disrespectful, and it had become "one of the family. Today it sets in the chicken coop, asleep, and waiting, hoping. Hoping that someone will find a place and a need for its capabilities. Waiting for folks to huddle about, warm their cold bones, toast fresh breed, feed it a good meal of corn cobs and cow chips to ease its hunger. Yep, those were hard times, good times, and some in between times. Overall, I am thankful for the Old Monarch. Together we are past mature, getting older, and full of memories.
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