Fire In The Cookstove

Ma cooked, Ma cooked, Ma cooked, and Ma COOKED!  I have, never before I knew Ma Jowers or since, seen anyone who cooked as Ma did.  The fire in the wood and coal stove never went out.  Oh, maybe it went out a few hours after midnight in the wee hours of the morning.  Here is a schedule that she kept the four months that Ed and I lived with her and Pa.

 Ed went to work at 6:30 a.m.  He left the house a little after 6:00 a.m.  Ma would get up, start the fire in the stove and fix Ed’s breakfast.  After he left for work, she would prepare breakfast for Clyde, Earl and Bennie in time for them to eat and catch the bus for school.   Then she and I would have breakfast.  By the time we finished and straightened up the kitchen a bit, it would be time for Pa to come in from his night job at the railroad.  He usually got home around 9:00 or 9:30 a.m.  After he ate, he would work around the yards or garden for an hour or two, then go to bed.  By that time, Ma and I would be ready for lunch.  Ma and I would cook us something to eat then straighten up the kitchen.  At 3:15 or 3:30 all three of her “boys” would come home from school.  They had to have something to eat.  After 5:30, Ed would come home from work, and we all had supper together.  Then at 9:00 p.m., Pa would be up and getting ready to go to work.  He at what he called his “breakfast”, because it was the first meal he ate after waking up.  I don’t see how Ma kept up the pace like she did.  She was like a mother bird feeding a nest of baby birds that always had their mouths open squawking for food.

So you see, the fire in the cook stove very seldom went out.

                                                                        -  Lorine Ellard Jowers