Memories of Family Farmhouses

As I walked into my house after Sunday morning church services, I caught a faint peppery, spicy smell. It was a lingering smoky odor from the furnace pipe separation the other evening. I thank God my cat Willow and the smoke alarm kept me from passing through the pearly gates of heaven. However, that aroma took me back to my youth when we would visit my great-great-grandfather Curtis Rugg’s home in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.

His home was the gathering place for the annual Rugg reunion. That farmhouse was white clapboard with dark green trim. There was a small front porch with a swing and I can remember seeing Curtis and my great-uncle Lincoln sitting on the swing. Curtis was stick thin while great-uncle Lincoln was rotund. Curtis was dressed casually, while Lincoln was in a three piece suit, a vest covering his wide expanse of belly.

There was a permanent stale smoke smell inside his home from the many fires that had been built in the kitchen stove. I’m sure they had a furnace in the basement, but I’d never been down there until long after Curtis had died. His son Theodore had also died and I went into the basement to do something for my great-aunt Ruth. I can remember the wooden shelves filled with canned goods in glass Mason jars, but I can’t remember seeing a furnace.

Like most farmhouses of that time, the downstairs consisted of a parlor, sitting room, dining room, and kitchen. Somewhere inside were the stairs leading up to four bedrooms; bathroom, only a path to the outhouse. There was a chicken yard where turkeys and chickens roamed and kids who ventured inside did so at their own risk. Many of the roosters were protective and floggings were frequent. Closer to the back porch was the well. It was topped with a concrete pad and a four foot tall hand pump. A tin cup hung on the nozzle ready to catch the cold, clear water tasting slightly of rusty iron, drawn up from below. The house was surrounded by fields, fruit trees, a small stream, and bee hives. Ruth dealt harshly with any kids caught messing with her bees. A large red barn sat across the road from the house.

My grandparents Miner’s farmhouse was laid out in much the same manner, but I can’t remember a similar smoky smell in their home. Usually it was the aroma of baking bread or something else cooking. The only harsh odor I can recall was when chickens were killed, their feathers dunked in scalding water, and hair were scorched off their carcasses. All these memories tumbled out from a tiny sniff of smoke.