Farm on 218 one mile north of Hickory Grove Corner, north of Mt. Pleasant. 1967 taken by Donald Gugeler, RR 1, Burlington, IA 754-8097
When its too cold to do anything else, we cut firewood.
That’s what always what Dad said. And it never made sense to me.
The big, old farmhouse on 218 was just north of Hickory Grove corner and cemetary, across the creek and up the hill on the right. The upstairs had 5 bedrooms and a bathroom. The five boys slept upstairs, and, mom and dad slept downstairs. Wisely, and fortunately for us. This old house was formerly known as the “Kitch House”, ancestors to most of the extended Kitch family in Henry County.
The house had a large wood furnace in the basement where the heat rose through large pipes, wrapped in asbestos paper, to each room. Heat rises, and there were no fans necessary to push it along. The black metal registers were either on the floor or a side register along the baseboard trim. They were about 16-18 inches square. The inside of the furnace was about 5 ft in diameter, domed inside ceiling with a 18 in square opening to the chimney which rose 4 stories through the center of the large farmhouse. Having the chimney pass upward through your room was a plus as it was warmer around the chimney. The firebox inside of the furnace had a floor of long, cylindrical shaped iron that allowed the ashes to fall thru to the box on the bottom that caught the spent ashes. There was a handle that allowed the shaped iron to roll in place, shaking the ashes down to the floor level where it was carried out in buckets. This is how our mornings began–hearing through the registers Dad open the furnace doors 2 floors below and shaking the ashes down to be carried out and make room for a new load for the winter day.
The inside of the furnace was encased in an outer metal shell, again wrapped in asbestos paper. At the top large pipes [14 in or so] collected the heat from above the firebox, sending it to the registers in the rooms above. In order to conserve heat, only certain rooms were supposed to be heated by the furnace. The main living floor was heated and the upstairs bathroom. The registers to the bedrooms were to be off…at least according to the rules.
A long winter night in the northwest bedroom was not always a cozy, winter experience. It was more like, warm up your pjs over the closest register; make a dash under the blankets, cover up totally and warm your sleeping space under the weight of 3 or so blankets. Then you poke your head out, see your breath, heavy frost on the windows, and maybe a little pile of snow in the window’s corner from a raging snow storm outside. In the fall I should’ve covered the window’s outside with plastic like Dad told me to do. I think I took it as a suggestion. I also realize I left the light on!
Meanwhile the fire in the basement furnace converted large blocks of firewood into heat for a large farm house full of 7 people all winter long. Usually, once the furnace was burning overnight, it never cooled down…at least on purpose. The fire was regularly stoked before bedtime at night, and at morning chore time for the day, and other times as necessary.
The wood supply was endless. The timber acres were filled with large, dead elm trees, victims of the Dutch Elm Disease. There were occasional hickory trees, downed by storms to be cleaned up as well. All this represented free winter heat for the family.
If it was too cold to do anything else, we would have to go cut wood. It sometimes took a couple of days to clean up a big elm tree. We would dress up in our winter warmest clothes–stocking cap, hooded sweatshirt, insulated overalls, heavy shirt, jeans, insulated underwear, 2 layers of socks, and heavy boots of some sort. And of course, yellow cotton work gloves, usually big enough for another pair of gloves inside.
Then off to the timber in the truck or tractor. Usually hadn’t seen the sun for days and the frozen fog seemed to embed into exposed skin. Sometimes snow. Clearly too cold to do anything else, I might add. I was too young to handle the chain saw we inherited from Uncle Earl, who live there before us. It had a big motor and a long bar.
It was always a thrill to see a huge American Elm tree fall. Slow motion and in the right direction. It is a perilous moment for the cold woodsmen who must stand at the right place safely out of the way. The trunk itself had to be 5-6 ft or more in diameter it seemed. [FYI, when a tree falls in the forest and someone is there to hear it…]. The American Elm is typically a very tall and wide shade tree with a very sturdy trunk. It hits the ground pretty hard coming down.
My job was to gather the small branches and start a fire nearby to burn the multitude of small branches; and to keep warm. The chainsaw buzzed away, soon leaving big blocks of wood to be loaded and taken to the house. Big blocks of wood what were split with a wedge and a maul enough to make them fit thru the furnace door. We loaded the pickup and often the manure spreader [multi-use equipment] or other wagons with the blocks of wood. The fire burned itself out.
There is still no sun and its getting dark; the icy air bites at my skin; I have to pee, but don’t want to open anything up to the cold; and still snowing. The heavy loads of blocks of wood on the truck and wagons were sometimes a challenge to pull out of the timber, onto the road and backed up to the north side of the house. The chute into the basement was here, where the blocks of wood passed into the basement at various velocities. In the basement, the wood was split until it fit through the door of the furnace. The tools around were wedges, mauls, and a couple of axes. In the shop were extra handles that tend to get chewed up and break when the maul comes down at high speeds and misses the wedge or the block of wood.
