As I have stated before many times I grew up on a farm in southern Clermont County near Moscow. The home I grew up in was the one I was born in and it was a brick two story farmhouse approximately 150 years old. Our home was solid and had endured many years; it was a good sized home and housed 5 people well. My parents it was safe to say weren’t people to be flashy and therefore our home was what could be referred to as functional. My parents had grown up in the Great Depression of the 1930s and they held on even harder to their money. Waste was a word we were told to heed but not get caught up in.
So it was no surprise that we held onto and used to the last use could be extracted from everting. Our kitchen was a large room of easily 15 feet by 15 feet in measure and held a corner cabinet, a pie safe an oak table with warped table leaves a refrigerator that only held two ice trays and no freezer and a gas cook stove. The stove had 4 cooking surfaces on top and a big oven. Our kitchen albeit functional was plain but more than that it was what was moved into that room the day they moved into it in about 1947. It served its purpose and allowed mom to cook what we all agreed were very good meals.
This all came to a change one sunny morning in June of about 1964. Dad, Ben and I were across the road from the house as half our farm was over there and we I think were working in the garden helping dad doing something I’m sure Ben nor I wanted or liked to be doing. All of a sudden there was a loud explosion that came from our house. Upon the sound dad immediately began to run to the house followed by Ben and myself as mom was the only person who was in the house at the time of the explosion. When we got to the house and ran into the kitchen we found that the vents on the stove had plugged up and when mom went to light the oven with a match it exploded! Not only did it explode but impact from it sent my mom over 15 ft. across the room into the opposite side of the room. What we saw thru a lot of dust was the following. Mom against the wall just staring at that stove. Mom reminded me of a scene out of a cartoon. Her hair was blown straight back on both sides of her face. Her eyebrows were singed and the soot that came out of those vents had covered her face to where she looked like black paint had covered her face.
At first of course this was a shocking scene to walk into and mom was just sitting there almost like in shock. My dad was terrified and as he assessed her he looked at her and asks “Madeline are you alright. Without a blink of an eye or even a pause mom looked up my dad and said “Ralph you are buying me a whole new kitchen” and never changed her expression. Dad never paused and looked at mom and said’ ok Madeline”. With this our kitchen got an entire remodeling. First we checked mom to make sure she wasn’t injured and by some miracle she wasn’t (except for the eyebrows and soot). Once we saw she was ok Ben and I headed for the outdoors so we could laugh just a little east the sight was right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
The following day mom and dad went to New Richmond to the A.P. Appliance store where mom picked out a new gas stove with not only four burners but a regular oven and one on top in Coppertone! Most importantly it came with a pilot light for each burner and oven! Then she picked out a new Coppertone refrigerator with a freezer on the top and a lot more space than the old one. She then picked out a brand new kitchen table that was brown on the surface and had chrome legs and edges, with 4 extra leaves and 6 matching chairs with cushioned seats. Now that would sound like a big investment but mom wasn’t done. She got dad to hire her some help to wash the walls off from the soot and dust. She had good reason as she had ordered new wallpaper. Not just plain paper but a wallpaper with a pattern on it that was going to be difficult to match up the strips of paper but when done it did look nice. She did concede on letting dad help her to hang the wallpaper instead of hiring it done. Yes that was an event that happened that none of us ever spoke about as mom was still recovering from a near fatal event to dad buying without question which I feel by the time it all added up he was nearing a near fatal event in his wallet.
When the kitchen was complete she showed it off to whoever entered and over the following years mom used the kitchen to do all that a farmers’ wife did and probably more. Life returned to normal and all our routines went on as usual. When I think of this event I can’t help thinking maybe my mom was by accident the creator of the T.V. show “This Old House”! But more than that I still picture my 4’ 11” 104 pound mother being “The human Cannonball”! Farm life is never boring.
Rick Houser was raised on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and likes to share his stories about his youth and other topics. He may be reached at houser734@yahoo.com