Vanishing America: The Old Wood Box

The Musings of A Simple Country Man

By Hobie Morris

The axe has vanished from the yard,

The chopping block is gone.

There is no pile of cordwood hard

For boys to work upon;

There is no box that must be filled

The passing of the wood.

–“When Mother Cooked With Wood” by Edgar A.  Guest

(Brookfield, NY – Jan. 2013
) It would never have been there generations ago. A discarded wooden firewood box piled with other bric-a-brac in front of an old village house being “cleaned out” for resale.  If my beautiful wife Lois hadn’t spotted it as we were driving out of the village the trash man would have made short work of it the next morning.

Stopping our pickup I backed up to the pile of roadside items.  I got out, looked at the box and a broken, but possibly fixable, old chair, and put both items in the back bed.

The next morning I quickly recognized that we have “saved” a unique example of a vanishing America.  A carefully handmade firewood box that once stood full of wood next to the indispensable cast iron kitchen range.  As Edgar Guest has written “…the kitchen knew a cheerful blaze And friendliness was there….”

The box was made to last.  Pieces of tin reinforced all four corners.  After scrubbing off layers of grime I painted the box a very attractive pale yellow.

When cold weather arrived the “new lease on life” wood box was carefully carried into our small home and placed next to our Jotul 118 Norwegian made cast iron stove that has provided us wonderful heat for over 40 years, both in Central Missouri and for the last 33 winters here in Central New York.

As I write I look at the full box and am nostalgically reminded of a different America when wood was the primary source of heat; real heat that soothed the deepest atoms of one’s body.

This simple country man feels extremely fortunate and blessed to have “discovered” this wooden gem and the symbolism that it represented for many now long forgotten generations.  Each day the wood box has to be filled—and refilled especially when Mother had many dishes to cook on top of the range and in the oven.

The chore was usually done by the boys in the family from wood stacked in the often attached woodshed or split by axe from larger chunks using a well-used chopping block close to the kitchen door.  Boys being boys, the level of enthusiasm varied tremendously from time to time.  But shirking this necessary work was hardly ever tolerated by Dad or Mom.

This simple country man has heard many stories of Dad taking a recalcitrant and stubborn son “to the woodshed” for a “hands on lesson” in the necessity of good, consistent work habits; lessons that lasted a lifetime.  Only when these family “chores” were satisfactorily completed could Junior run off to play—never before!

Poet Edgar Guest remembers his experiences:

I used to dread my daily chore

I used to think it tough

When Mother at the kitchen door

Said I’d not chopped enough.

And on her baking day, I know,

I shirked whene’er I could

In that now happy long ago.

“When Mother Cooked with With Wood”

Filling the wood shed (and wood box) was a year around necessity in which “many hands” made the job easier. Muscle power and plenty of sweat (in season) were required when using the two-man cross cut saw, bow saw and axe.  Before the machine age the work was slow and required a good amount of time when not doing a large number of other chores—especially for people living in rural America where most people lived late into the 19th Century.

Today well over 99 percent of Americans use other sources of heat energy besides wood.

In the rural area there are still a few families that have only a single energy source –firewood.  There are other “throw-backs” to a vanishing America but they are a tiny minority of rural dwellers.  And, yes, our near neighbors and close friends, Ken and Kate, also use a wood box like this simple country man and his lovely American-Norwegian wife.

It was as if it were good to have something solid and defined to oppose. –Arfive, A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

Filling our wood box has been one of this simple country man’s main year around jobs for over 33 years; seasoned wood enough for two, sometimes three, stoves burning 24/7 during the long winter season.

During the summer and fall my wife Lois daily uses our tiny Norwegian cook stove to cook, heat water, can, bake, make homemade yogurt, etc.   In 33 years of almost daily use, tens of thousands of foot long pieces of wood have entered into its little burning chamber; a truly marvelous necessity to our thoreauvian lifestyle.

Recently this simple country man responded to a letter from a 95 year old friend who lives in southern Ohio, who spent her growing up years on a farm outside of Bridgewater in southern Oneida County.

My beautiful wife Lois and I live the way most Americans did when Mary was a child.  Her vivid recollections of those years have proven a wonderful glimpse into an America now largely forgotten in the 21st Century.

While Mary knows how we live she often asks leading questions that I like to try to answer.  One such question regards our firewood.  My reply possibly stimulating nostalgic reminders of the years when Mary and her brother Bill had to keep the Kennedy family’s wood box filled.

This simple country man’s overriding firewood philosophy is reflected in the following late 19th Century newspaper clipping entitled “Wood for Winter.” It reads in part:

 When I see a pile of green wood at a farmer’s door I

need no further evidence of his shiftlessness….Such

a man is sure to be poor during life….The pile of green

wood for immediate use tells his whole history….Far-

mers should have large wood houses with a year’s

dry wood ahead constantly.

To Mary I write

I have a lot of firewood preparations to make.  SinceI have three different sizes for three different stoves, each size must be in separate stacks.  The stacks must be in easily accessible locations.  The stacks must be securely covered and stapled down so the wind doesn’t uncover them.

When wood is needed the pieces are often re-split to smaller size and then carried by hand into our home and re-plied in ricks—now a wood box.

Our stoves, of course, have to be started, fed, and built up ashes regularly taken out.  A new supply of wood brought in daily or more often if needed.

At least once a month our very tall chimney has to be cleaned; a careful process that in total takes several hours.  And all this is a year round process that we have repeated 33 times. All this wood has to be cut up in the woods and hauled down to where the stacks will be located.

It sounds simple on paper but as you know, Mary, it takes a big effort. But there is no better heat than from seasoned wood. It warms you to the bones.

As you also know, Mary, food cooked on a wood stove has a delectable flavor.  Pies baked in the oven can’t be beat.  Wood also heats our water, dries our hair and clothes.  Its list of uses is seemingly endless.  Plus it’s a renewable, infinite fuel source if properly managed. The removal of just one cull tree allows space for a new family of seedlings to grow and mature.  This in turn produces life sustaining oxygen while at the same time absorbing the green house gases.  With wood there is no dependence on foreign or domestic oil cartels.

And all these many benefits obtained by your own effort and willingness to be a little different in an age of switches, conformity and yes physical softness and laziness.  This simple country man feels amazingly mentally and physically invigorated from this daily effort of supplying the wood to fill our wood box.

But then again these are only the musings of a simple country man and his beautiful wife Lois, who is a huge help in countless ways to keep the firewood burning and our two cats petted and loved. Lois is an extremely loved and loving person.  To know Lois is to love her as I have every day for 47 years.  She is an indomitable free spirit with countless talents and boundless energy reminiscent of her parents and grandparents, who were early farming pioneer settlers in the Dakotas in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies.  Lois is truly a remarkable pioneering woman in the 21st Century.

Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man. Illustration by Hobie Morris.