It's lucky that photography was invented before the automobile, so we have lots of pictures of horse pulled vehicles still around. All my photos today were found on FaceBook, so thank you to those who provided them for me to share here.
In the mountains of America (and I don't know where this photo was taken) many a home was built with minimum of knowledge about the structure. Having the chimney in the middle of the house meant more of the heat was kept inside. But the roof is sadly sagging already. The siding shows a mill had made this lumber, though the pickets on the fence seem to not have a good connection.
I don't know which "Great Road" this is referring to, nor which Panther Springs. If you do, please let me know. But I notice that it has been built of huge logs that were flattened at least on the outside, with some white plaster-like material between the gaps. It has two chimneys from inside the house, and the roof looks pretty well supported.
Many families could easily have had a dozen children, though often that meant the man had remarried after a first wife had died. Every child would have some chores to do on the property, so that a lot of the food to feed these mouths could come right from the farm.
A young bride would live with her parents and her new husband unless he'd already built their home. The oldest daughters would have the same skills as their mothers in use of a wood stove. My sister had a bigger one than this when she "lived off the land in the mountains of TN." It had an oven next to the firebox, as well as warming oven above the surface to the back of the stove. She learned how to get the temperature right with different kinds of wood for different cooking. What an art!
Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week. Love the old photos!
Today's Quote:
From everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living, nothing in my eyes is better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. -Ivo Andric, novelist, Nobel laureate (9 Oct 1892-1975)
You have found some great old pictures there, showing how tough and resilient people of the past must have been. I like the quote too, even though it's not strictly correct; many bridges were built as a profit-making enterprise with tolls being charged to cross. Worse still it was frequently monasteries and other religious houses who built these and collected the tolls - but maybe that's not such a surprise.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard that, of monasteries building bridges. Here we had ferries, or just a ford where horses could go across rivers, and when a bridge was built it was by either a civic organization or personal financing, which then charged tolls until the construction had been paid for. I admit to not knowing the nationality of Ivo Andric, the novelist who said that quote above.
Delete...wonderful looks back.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteWonderful photos, I like the horse and wagon and the family on the porch!
Take care, have a happy day and great weekend.
I can't imagine all the streets only having horses going along, and leaving behind what horses leave behind! Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteThose are some great photos. You're probably right about the man having married a second time to produce all those children. Must wonder about the ones who didn't survive.
ReplyDeleteYes, whenever I look at new people on ancestry charts, there are so many young people who died before reaching adulthood.
DeleteCooking atop a wood stove is not limited to "the old days"! Living in the woods and mountains in cabins and cottages for years when my husband was working for the Forest Service, we dealt with frequent power outages in the winter and I learned how to make several things for dinner on top of a wood stove. Soup, of course, and stew. Also a kind of flat meatloaf and various casseroles - all made in my grandmother's cast iron Dutch oven. The most important thing in the morning, of course, was learning how to make percolated coffee! Set it one place atop the stove to get the water boiling, then move it to another spot to let it perk. It was tricky, but I learned quickly. Certain things are simply necessary for one's mental well-being!
ReplyDeleteThat's great to know that you cooked on a wood burning stove also. It probably took a few tries and you became an expert!
DeleteLearning to cook and bake with a wood stove must certainly have been an art with some experimental science. And dangerous as well. When I look through old newspapers, I sometimes stumble upon an article about someone's death or serious injury resulting from cooking fires. Wonderful photos.
ReplyDeleteOh, I hadn't thought those stove to also be dangerous, but I know before women had stoves to cook on they used fireplaces, which were surely dangerous. My sister learned which woods burned hottest, which were good to start the fire with, and which would continue to hold about the same temperature so she could bake a cake.
DeleteI still have a wood stove which we use only in very cold weather. It's great for frying chicken. But I've never used it routinely--which is what's needed to get good at it.
ReplyDeleteYes, and you probably already know which woods are best for making enough heat to fry that chicken. Mmm, southern fried chicken is so good!
DeleteQuite a throwback to the past.
ReplyDeletePeople's lives certainly have changed in the last century!
DeleteIn a strange way I feel fortunate to have known my father's home in rural Maryland with its outhouse and woodstove. I have pictures of him splitting kindling and his mother cooking on the cast iron stove. I recognize it now as a connection to earlier times and to the lives of ancestors I might never know but at least I can understand a small part of their lives.
ReplyDeleteThat's indeed great to know about your heritage. I learned a lot in the 70s "back to the land" movement...as well as moving to the Appalachian Mountains.
DeleteWe still have some of those types of log/timber homes in this area, some right in this town.
ReplyDeleteI'd love for you to take some photos of those old log homes sometime...hint hint!
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