The Kitchen: Memories and Memories

A conversation with my husband today got me thinking about kitchens and the ones that left an impression on me.It is funny how one thing--in this case a large preserving kettle in an antique shop--will spur a memory and lead to remembering long-forgotten places, people, or things.

Me, first Christmas in this house, 1976. That's my
first Tappan stove in the background. The house
was nowhere near finished yet.

The kettle reminded me of the neighbor we called "Grandma" Compton. She wasn't my grandmother, of course. My grandmothers lived in England and New Orleans. But she suggested to my mother that we children call her that, even though to be honest she was a little frightening to us. She was, we thought, really old. Now I realize Grandma Compton was probably about the age I am now, possibly a few years older. Her deep, rich voice intimidated any child thinking of mischief, and her eyes didn't seem to miss a thing.

(This memory of Grandma Compton's kitchen is sharing space with some pics of the evolution of my kitchen here in this house I built with my first husband 40 years ago.)

 We didn't go to her house often; in fact, I can only remember being there twice. Once was with my mother for some kind of party event where pretty things were shown by a lady to a group of other ladies, and the pretties were passed around for everyone to see. I don't remember what the things were, but I remember trying to keep one of them until my mother's firm voice told me to pass it on.

About 1979, pretty tired from canning all summer and getting
ready for my parents' second visit. Things were a little more
finished, but no electricity yet.

The second visit is the one I remember most clearly. Grandma Compton had come up to our house with a large, steaming preserving kettle--the blue-black speckled kind--full of the most heavenly-smelling applesauce. In her booming voice she suggested my mother send me down to get more apples, as she had more of them than she could work up.

So a little bit later I was shyly knocking on the door of the big white Victorian house two doors down
from us and shaking a bit when a loud voice called "Come on in!" I made my way timidly through the dark hallway with its looming oak hall tree and wide stairs that disappeared in darkness above me. "Come in, come in!" the voice boomed again, and then I was in the kitchen.

About 1982. My parents were visiting for
the third time, bringing English family
with them. Still no electricity, and the Tappan
had given up and was replaced by this stove that
I came to hate.

And what a kitchen it was. A cast-iron, white porcelain sink with a high backsplash was on one wall, and another wall was covered by tall dark wood cabinets with beadboard doors at the bottom and glass doors at the top that reached all the way to the ceiling 12 feet above. Windows looked out to a sunroom and gardens beyond. The smell of spicy applesauce filled the room, wafting from steaming kettles on a large old-fashioned porcelain stove that stood on curving legs. A large aluminum kettle added its own heat to the room as it boiled away on another burner.

Grandma Compton's sharp eyes saw me and she said, "Hello there. You've come for the apples, I expect." I could only nod, my voice completely trapped in my throat."

She clumped over to the door that led to the back porch and lifted a brown bag full of apples, bringing it over to where I stood like a statue. "Will you help your mother with these?"

I nodded quickly and swallowed. "Yes ma'am," I squeaked.

She smiled. "Well then, get along home now." I scurried out of there and up the walk with the heavy bags, my feet seeming to grow wings.

Early 1986, when I was working fulltime as a security guard in
Charleston. That year I had my 5th son, and in 3 years I would be a
 sophomore in college, and we would finally have electricity.

I can still see that kitchen in my mind, with the crockery bowls on the shelves in the cabinet and Grandma Compton in her full apron and sturdy black lace-up shoes with their chunky one-inch heels. And I think now she would have liked it if I had stayed and talked, for she lived alone. I also think her kitchen is part of what inspired my love of vintage kitchen tools and crockery from the 1930's-1950's.

What about you? Is there a kitchen that stays vividly in your mind, one that brings back emotions and even smells when you think of it?

And another thought: Where does the word kitchen come from anyway? According to Wiktionary: 

My wood cookstove, which I finally sold
2 years ago.

"From Middle English kytchen, kichene, küchen, from Old English cyċen, cyċene (“kitchen; cooking; cuisine”), from Proto-Germanic *kukinǭ (“kitchen”), a borrowing from Vulgar Latin cucīna, from Latin coquīna (“kitchen; cuisine”), from coquō (“to cook”), from Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, become ripe”). Germanic cognates include Saterland Frisian Köäkene (“kitchen”), West Frisian koken (“kitchen”), Dutch keuken (“kitchen”), German Low German Köken (“kitchen”), German Küche (“kitchen”), Danish køkken (“kitchen”). Romance cognates include French cuisine (borrowed into English cuisine), Italian cucina, and Spanish cocina. In other languages, the cognate term often refers both to the room and the type of cooking. In English, the distinction is generally made via the etymological twins kitchen (“room”) (of Germanic origin) and cuisine (“type of cooking”) (from French)."

My kitchen today, with another beloved Tappan range:

For a fascinating look at kitchens through the ages, check out these sites:

Wayfair's Kitchens Through the Ages.

This Old House's American Kitchens Through the Ages

If vintage stoves are your thing, this post on Old House Online is a fun browse.

I am looking forward to reading about your favorite kitchens in the comments!




Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Tomatoes in the Attic

Ah, tomatoes!

It's that time of year--at last! Our tomatoes are later this year for some reason. Perhaps all the rain in June and early July slowed down pollination. We've been getting a few here and there, enough to keep us happy, but now the boom is on. Yellow, pink, black and red are filling up the table on the deck as Larry brings them in. He prefers picking before they're completely ripe; I like to leave them on the vine as long as possible but since he's doing the picking, I'm not complaining.


I have always loved tomatoes. Some years we plant as many as 14 varieties, but this year I think we're down to 7 or 8. My absolute favorites are the black varieties--Black Prince and Black Crim. This year I could only find black cherry tomato plants so that's what I bought, along with some Cherokee Purple that seem like black tomatoes to me. Next favorites are the big pinks and deep golden yellows. This isn't to say I don't like reds! But these others are pretty much only available to us in summer, so I really look forward to them.

Our house at 514 East Quarry St, later renumbered
as 8807 Quarry Road, in Manassas, VA. We were
hard on that old place! You can see the attic window
in this photo.

I remember when I was 11, I would sneak down to the garden and get a half dozen tomatoes at a time, hide them in my pockets or wherever I could, then go up into the attic before Mom caught me. It was a trick to get into the attic because there was no ladder and the ceilings in our house were 12 fet high. First I had to position the bedroom door just right. Then I would get my feet on the doorknobs. From there I could pull myself up to the top of the door, and from there stretch to reach the attic opening. I would get my hands on the sides of the opening, and pull myself up until I could get a foot on top of the door trim. I could lift the attic trapdoor with my head, and then pull/push myself up and inside to fall on the floor. Now as I read this, it seems impossible, but at that age I was agile and strong and it seemed easy once I figured it out.

Once inside the attic I would tiptoe carefully on the boards that spanned the rafters, being careful not to let my foot slip and go through the lath-and plaster ceiling of the room below. That would have disaster! I'd have been in bad trouble and even worse, I'd have given away my hiding place in the dark, unfinished, hot attic.

There were three secrets, I discovered, in the attic: First, if I stretched out on the floor in front of the half-circle window at the front of the house, there was a most delicious, steady breeze. It was cool there even on the hottest northern Virginia days.

Me, at about the age I was in this post.
I remember Mom trimmed my bangs, and as she tried
to even them up, they just got shorter and shorter!

Then there were the boxes and boxes of old books. These books had belonged to my grandparents and when they moved a lot of their things ended up in our house, and up in our attic. There I discovered Janice Holt Giles, an author I still enjoy re-reading. There were many other books, all best-sellers from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. I read all that summer, eating tomatoes or sometimes Concord grapes when those came ripe.

And the third secret: from that half-round arched window, I could just barely see, if I positioned myself right, the blue Bull Run Mountains. I would look at them as I read Giles' The Enduring Hills, imagining myself living in a cabin in the mountains. How little I knew then that that is exactly what would happen.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Black and White

The house I grew up in. 

I wrote this over a year ago and just found it again in my files. It's a story that took a long time for me to put in writing, in black and white on a page in front of me. Time gives perspective, and also bring understanding and perspective. So today I bring you this personal story from the spring of 1967.

My mother wanted me to date Catholic boys, but I never did. Until Bob.

I was friends with many Catholic boys; after all, I went to a small Catholic school through the seventh grade. But those boys were more like brothers, we’d been together so long. None of them interested me and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t interesting to any of them either. In the public junior high school I was surrounded by students of all faiths, a novel experience. Who knew that there were so many kids in our county! My graduating class from the Catholic school had 14 students; my class at the junior high probably had a couple hundred.

I wasn’t allowed to date, according to my father, until I was eighteen; still I managed to circumvent his rule when I was 15. But none of the boys I went out with were Catholic and my parents were not happy about that and did not like a single one of the guys I brought home to meet them. It took a pretty confident boy to come home with me in the first place. I had twelve siblings after all, and a strict, unfriendly father waiting at the door. Mom would be gracious but Dad was anything but, and usually had the poor fella squirming in just a few minutes.

In my junior year of high school I met Bob. He was different from the other kids. For one thing, he was older. He’d dropped out of school to work in his senior year, but had come back to finish up. He was working evening shift at a garage and going to school during the day. He had the hottest car, a Plymouth Roadrunner I think it was, a real muscle car. And he was drop dead gorgeous. He was half Mexican, I was told, which probably accounted for his dark good looks and liquid brown eyes. And wonder of wonders, he was Catholic! I fell for him, hard.

I could not wait for him to meet my mother. Dad was working evening shift so he wasn’t home. I brought Bob into the living room, and said, “Mom, this is Bob.”

Mom and Dad, probably taken
in the 1960's

Mom put on her best “English lady” look and voice. She used it to “put people in their place,” as she said. She had a fine English accent, and a warm loving way usually, but there were times when she would literally look down her nose at people, and the accent became quite pronounced, and well, superior-sounding.

“How do you do, Bob?” she said in that voice that I knew meant she didn’t like him already.

“Bob goes to our church,” I said hopefully. “He has a job but he’s also going to school.”  I could not understand why she was acting so unfriendly. She didn’t even invite him to sit down.

“Well, Susie, you have your work to do. Don’t you think you’d better say good-bye now?”

I walked Bob to his car and said good-bye, watching as he drove away. Then I went back inside, where I was confronted by a very angry mother.

“How dare you bring that…that…that…BLACK boy into our house!” She was so angry her face was red.

“Black! He’s not black! I think he’s part Mexican or something!” I was stunned. What was she talking about?

“I thought you’d like him, Mom! He’s Catholic, he goes to church every Sunday. And he works full-time even though he goes to school. He’s a nice guy.”

“He’s not our type, and he’s too old for you.”

“Well, he dropped out of school for a year. He’s only like 18 or 19!”

You will not see him anymore, is that clear?”

“But why…?”

“That’s all. You better hope I don’t tell your father about this!” She left the room, and I was left trying to understand what had just happened.

Perhaps a stronger-willed girl would have defied her mother and continued seeing the forbidden one. Perhaps another girl would have argued her case, or snuck around seeing her guy in secret. I didn’t. I was heartbroken but I followed my mother’s orders. I broke off with Bob, telling him that my mother thought he was too old for me.

I’ve never forgotten that day. I’ve thought about it and wondered if I should have stood up for my friend against my mother’s wishes. I wondered what my father would have thought if he’d ever met Bob, this young man with the hands of a working-man and a quiet, respectful manner. But Dad, I learned later, felt the same way as my mother. Anyone of any color whatsoever was not our kind.

Until that day I had not realized that my mother had an ounce of racism in her, but looking back I remembered the day we went to visit Sarah, the black lady who cleaned the church. Sarah was always kind to us, and often stopped to talk to Mom at our garden gate. One day she invited Mom and us girls to her home for tea. Mom must have been flabbergasted at the invitation but she accepted. We had to dress in our Sunday clothes, even down to wearing gloves, and Mom was nervous as a cat the whole time. We girls, on the other hand, were fascinated by Sarah’s house and by her incredibly beautiful flower gardens. I knew Mom wasn’t happy about being there, and seemed to worry that someone might see us. I was only nine or ten at the time so the reason for her discomfort didn’t register.

Later in life Mom changed her views. Perhaps it was because the world around her grew increasingly multicultural and those of other races became part of her everyday circle—doctors, nurses, priests, church members and even neighbors. Her heart was kind and compassionate and working as a nurse’s assistant brought her the reality that suffering and joy are the same for everyone, no matter their color. 

I wonder about Bob from time to time. I didn’t get to know him very well, so where he went in life I do not know. But in my mind he has remained darkly handsome, with those liquid-soft brown eyes, brown hair burnished with gold, and a smile that even today brings a smile to my lips. I hope his life has been as good as mine turned out to be.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.