Clay for the Potter

“Our sod house, which we lived in for ten years, ran east and west,
thus we referred to the “east room” and the “west room”. There were
no windows or doors on the north side of the house, a protection
against the fierce winds of winter. The front door faced east, and there
were two large east windows. There were also two west windows, and in
each of the rooms there was a window on the south wall, as well as a
back door in the west room. A partition, with an
open archway, separated the two rooms.

In the west room, between the partition and the back door, was a fairly
good-sized, square closet. It was here that Mother and Dad always hid
the Christmas presents. Each year, the presents, most of which were
ordered from the Montgomery Ward catalog, included three wooden
buckets of candy—one of dipped chocolates,one of
peanut brittle, and one of “ribbon” candy.
Under the west room was a small dugout cellar, reached through a
trap door in the floor. Here we stored potatoes, squash, cabbage,
and root vegetables for the winter. How I hated jumping down into
that dank, musty hole to sprout potatoes, a dreaded spring chore.

Two double beds, with a dresser between them, filled the north wall
of the west room. A coal cook stove, a round oak table, and a few
nondescript chairs completed the furniture. One “chair” was really
a fireless-cooker, an ingenious barrel-like object, with four-inch thick
insulated metal walls, and a hinged lid that could be tightly secured.
Two round soapstones, one for the bottom and one for the top, were
first heated on the coal stove, and then placed under and over the food
being prepared. They dispensed heat for several hours—enough to cook
a fine meal. This was the original deep-well cooker, or crock-pot, and
served as a food carrier for manya church picnic, as well as
one of our “chairs” all my growing up years.
Those soapstones were in constant use during the winters as bed-warmers.
Mother would put them on the stove in the early evening. When they were
good and hot, she wrapped them in an old towel and put them at the foot
of our beds, between the sheets. What a treat to feel that
warmth when we got into bed on a cold night.”    -page 18