the heating stove

The heating stove was set in the wall between the dining room and parlor. It was smooth with the wall in the parlor and all trimmed up on that side. The other side set out into the dining room and the door for the wood was on that side. At the top of the stove was a large oven where Mother baked pork and beans and the bread made of rye flour and corn meal that she called "rye and Injun." Anything that should bake a long time with a steady heat, Mother baked in the oven in the heater and the great stove warmed both parlor and dining room. -Farmer Boy manuscript

The above photo shows the current "heating stove" at the Wilder farm. Today, a fellow researcher questioned the large opening around the existing stove, which I assumed would have been there because of the danger of fire from having exposed and possibly red-hot iron close to the walls and trim. From the passage above, though, it seems as if the parlor side of the stove wall was "trimmed out" with decorative iron pieces so that the opening wasn't quite as obvious as it is today. I know that when I read Farmer Boy, I never picture the family as being able to see so much of the parlor through the stove opening. The parlor, to me, is always closed off, both in terms of accessibility and sight.

It does appear that the Wilder home was added onto more than once. Perhaps the space between the parlor and dining room originally contained a two-sided open fireplace, or even a single fireplace on an exterior wall at some point.

In Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder does mention a chimney above the stove - one that went through the room above and out through the roof. There is a chimney on the house today. It's hard to imagine a brick chimney starting above a stove; what was it resting on? What held it up? It would make more sense for the chimney to have been above a masonry surround and continue to wrap around a hearth and down into the foundation below.

It would be interesting to know what was found in that area when the house was being renovated.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:32 AM