Memories on Clark's Summit

The Kitchen

Growing up I loved our kitchen. I especially loved our table. The table was where everything happened. Pie dough was rolled, Christmas cookies made, homemade bread and rolls made. When my Grandmother came to stay she would make homemade Gnocchi’s or Ravioli’s. Mom would make her Stuff Cabbage; I played with my doll house, did my homework, sat and read my book. Dad would read the paper while having his after dinner coffee. I can still picture it in my mind just like it was yesterday. There was one window in the kitchen, under the window was a roll cart to hold the toaster, deep fryer, mixer and blender. In the summer my dad would put a double fan in it, one side took the hot air out while the other brought the cold air in. I don't think that fan did anything it was suppose to as I never felt cold air at all! The porcelain sink was on the left of the window. The sink had a homemade skirt around it to hide the plumbing, and a place to keep the dish soap and cleansers. The one thing I don’t remember is what kind of flooring we had.

 The kitchen was the largest room in our house. Back in the day we did not have beautiful wood kitchen cabinets, we had one large built in cupboard that was over on the far left wall of the kitchen. White wood framed glass panels. I remember that glass always sparkling. Mom lined the shelves with shelf paper that folded over to look like a little awning hanging. The paper was changed for holidays, and spring cleaning. When that time came around, everything had to be removed, along with what was now considered the old shelf paper. Mom would wash the inside and after it dried she would line the shelves with the new paper, putting everything back in.  It was an all day job.

Besides the dishes, cups, glasses, etc. kept inside, there on the bottom shelf, on the right hand side, sat a round small white glass bowl filled with pennies, dimes, quarters,  and nickels. Pennies' were just as important as the other coins back then. I never remember that bowl being empty. That was the bowl that everyone went to if they wanted to buy something small.  Mom would tell me to take money from the bowl to go buy a bottle of Pepsi, when I asked if I could buy a comic book, I was told to take the money from the bowl. My dad told me to take money from it to buy the daily paper. The bowl was always full every time I went to it!

 We didn't have walk in closets back then - we didn't have a lot of clothes either!  It was nothing if we wore the same dress or skirt twice in one week. I am not sure of this, but I think we hung our coats on hooks on the wall where the landing led to the  cellar steps.   We had a coal furnace back then that my dad took care of- that part was located towards the back, I never had to do this, but I remember my dad shoveling the coal off the cellar floor into the furnace and then using the poker to stir up the fire. Oh, the mess of black coal!   In the front part of the cellar was the wringer washer and tubs. Later on after I graduated from Beauty School, my dad fixed up a working area for me so I could work on people’s hair.

I really miss having table and chairs in our kitchen today. When we first built our home, we had an eat in kitchen, my sons all sat around and did as I did when I was a child. We had dinner at the table and prayed before meals every night - I loved it. I did as my mother did too, made my pie dough, bread, rolls and dinners. I also sat there and do counted cross stitch, rewrite recipes or write letters to friends.


When the boys grew older, Ron wanted to redo our kitchen and make it into a Gallery kitchen so I would have more storing space. That’s when we lost the heart of our home – now it is the dining room where everyone gathers but it is just not the same - - -