Rich, dark, slim grooved boards covered the walls. White cupboards stood out from the darkness. The heart of the kitchen was the midnight black cast iron stove with the reservoir for hot water. Near the stove was its’ sustenance dry hardwood stacked in the wood bin. The life blood of the room was the hand pump which drew clear, pure drinking water from the well. The soul of the room was the sturdy black walnut table where the family gathered three times a day before venturing forth by one of the six exits from the room.
Who has left through those doors? My great grandfather, great grandmother and their ten children of whom my grandfather was the youngest. Who entered? The young school teacher who was hired to teach at the one room school house just a ‘stone’s throw away.’ She would become my loving, witty grandmother.
Grandma and grandpa raised four children, two girls and two boys, around that kitchen table. The oldest, a girl, left through a door and as her career progressed, became the first female principle with the Ottawa Board of Education. Her sister, the youngest, went out the same door and became a teacher but after marriage was off to Africa. My father’s brother went out a door, enlisted in the army and fought in WWII. Years later he would return through the same door and join my father at the kitchen table.
My mother would come through a door and for several years worked in harmony with my grandmother at the table. My brother and I went out many doors to play rodeo with the calves, climb through the hay lofts, ride our bikes down the lane, go to school, weed the garden and my brother to work on the farm while I worked at the kitchen table with my mother. We would in time leave by different doors to forge our own path but we were welcomed back at any time to sit at the table.
For the past twenty years my husband and I have sat at the kitchen table. Over the years, our daughters have come and gone through a variety of doors with frequent meals at the table. The kitchen has changed since my childhood. The cast iron stove is no longer there and it is an electric pump that provides the clear, pure water that I remember from my childhood.
As I watch my grandchildren, the sixth generation to sit at the kitchen table and as they chat and munch on their snack of orange sections, apple slices and cashews, I am reminded that although many have left the kitchen through its’ various doors, the table remains as the soul of the kitchen and of this house.