A recent post from Facebook friend Umberto concerned how to properly iron a shirt. I leapt upon the video with joy, as this is a subject of unimaginable interest to me, having well-learned one or two of the rudimentary moves of shirt ironing at my mother’s knee, or more exactly, seated on the “broadshelf,” or kitchen counter, in Pavilion, watching my mother as she and I exchanged countless conversations while she tirelessly labored at the ironing board set up in the middle of the room. Those long talks we shared started in my early grade school years, continuing even through my college days and various treks around the world. Mom and I always felt that, then as now, we had so many important topics to discuss.
In those earliest memories in her kitchen, the tile floor was a wonderful patchwork of 12 by 12 inch red and white linoleum. Every Saturday morning these tiles were brought to an impeccable shine, just one of my chores, all the way through high school. In the fifties, the room was cheery, with vast hand-made cabinets painted in a light ivory shade, with pale green doors, featuring miles of red counter edged with stainless steel. The cabinetry was amazingly well done and detailed, with pull-out boards for bread-making, pull-out racks for drying dishtowels, and even corner cabinets where you could hide or explore forgotten treasures. It was all crafted by my talented Uncle Harold Kingdon, who besides the stadium seats he built in Paris in ‘44, had been among the carpenters to construct the stands for the Trials in Nuremburg while he served in Germany. Mom and Harold were the same age, and she is now 99 ½. My parents had just bought a house to fix up, and Dad hired my uncle for his very first civilian job just fresh from the service. For years, Dad proudly claimed that we had the best and most modern kitchen in town, which was possibly true in those days. From an all-purpose back room of an 1890s frame house, purchased in ’45 for eight hundred dollars, lacking electricity, which had only a pump for the well water, a wood stove in the corner, and a single window, my parents had created — with that kitchen — the ideal of the American Dream, where they proceeded to raise a family in the small town of Pavilion, known for its good school system.
The room was again revamped after serving for 25 years, when Mom’s Uncle Ernie left her three thousand dollars. Once again, Harold was called for the work, and all the cabinet doors and drawer faces were replaced with hand-cut knotty pine, perfectly stained and varnished to a warm glow, and now large black wrought-iron hinges and fixtures set off the new “Colonial” appearance. He built new wooden frames to match for the door casings, matching paneled wainscoting, and added a double Dutch door, all in that warm, honey colored stain, to help contain any pets, and there were many! Copper bricks were applied behind the counter of pale green Formica. An enlarged picture window helped increase ventilation and improved Mom’s view of the cardinals at the feeder. A new floor, new scrubbable wallpaper with an “Early American” motif was chosen, a new sink and of course a new Tappan range with an enormous gas oven was put in. You might say that that gas oven remained the soul of the kitchen, functioning throughout pipe-freezing winters and long Western New York summers, apart of course from that very real soul of my Mother.
Toddler memories include the precise spot where I was placed in the corner, seated on a potty, to be trained. Mom was within view, talking to me as she prepared our lunch. I remember being seated in the high chair, too, and the fun of pushing food off the little tray table! One of my privileges was being the youngest of three; when the other kids were in school and I felt I had Mom’s 100 percent attention. We had secrets, and we had treats, all while listening together to Arthur Godfrey on the Breakfast Club coming live from Chicago! Some days Uncle Leo, who ran the grocery store downtown, would have fresh oysters. Our treat on Tuesdays would be homemade oyster stew, made with milk and butter and lots of salt and pepper, and of course oyster crackers! Seated at that mid-century chrome and metal table set, I learned how to hold and use my knife and fork, and my basic table manners. In that kitchen I also witnessed, without a single word, signs of domestic tenderness: Mom would leave out the lunch box with sandwiches for Dad’s early ride to work in LeRoy, while he in turn would leave out her coffee mug by the tea kettle, every morning, so it would be there when she got up. A scoop of instant coffee was already in the cup.
The kitchen table was host to coffee Klatches of aunts and gossiping neighbors; it was the place where we shucked heaps of sweetcorn fresh from the garden; it’s where the Singer sewing machine was set up for dressmaking, stitching, and one time, a prize-winning Halloween costume was confectioned for me from bedsheets, when I went as an Indian. At that table there were small, chaperoned high school get-togethers featuring wine coolers; Thanksgiving preparations were elaborated in the kitchen using every inch of the table, in anticipation of as many as 25 people who would be served in the dining room on tables for the grandparents, folding tables and card tables for the kids; Mom’s office work was sometimes brought home and spread across the surface of the Colonial style table and four matching chairs she bought to replace the old one.
Mom was quite expert at making a good pie. Summertime was full of strawberry-rhubarb, rhubarb custard, black raspberry, apple, and peach wonders, all marvels really. She always canned bushels of local peaches, and canned lots of tomatoes from Dad’s garden, which we enjoyed all winter, brought up from the cellar. Then there were pickles, sweet and dill. She also made wonderful cakes, especially German chocolate three-layer cake and a kind of lemon sheet cake with a glaze which I declared a basic food group at age 16.
Saturdays Dad worked overtime in the morning, but joined us for lunch. In the summer he would step out and harvest a few green peppers, which he had learned to fry up in fragrant oil to make wonderful sandwiches. He also made meatballs to perfection, light and flavorful, that talent due to the Italian kids in his neighborhood and his access to their family secrets, back in the ‘20s.
Installed in the kitchen was the latest wall model dial telephone, a black model to accessorize with the 1960s update to Colonial style. I know it was that very phone I reached one sad evening in 1977 when I called from the airport in Boston, having hurriedly arrived from Berlin, summoned by my brother Ron, with “You better come home.” I expected to get an update on my Father, who had been struggling in the hospital for weeks after two years’ battle with cancer. It wasn’t Mom, but Aunt Eve, who answered: her voice was solemn, but ever so maternal, the image of her completely matter-of-fact self, stating “Well, Greg, he died last night.” I was on my way back to an ordeal, one that once again was largely centered in the kitchen of our house. Neighbor ladies pitching in, relatives, even our friend Doctor Heumann and our favorite priest Father Tomiak were all there, and when I walked into that room on that August day, a day just like today, sure enough Mom was bent over the open oven poking something with her long fork and with her pot-holders ready, carrying on, loving, and preparing for how our lives — hers, and all of ours — would change in so many ways.
She remained in that house for the fifteen years that followed, until she wisely foresaw that the climb of those steep stairs and the upkeep of the house and yard would someday become overwhelming. So after 50 years of living at that address, she took her next step to a smaller apartment in the city, and that was around 25 years ago.
If I may say so, the new place had a kitchen, but not a soul.
- Mom ironed in those days (the fifties and onward) by pre-moistening the clothing with a sprinkler that was made from a recycled Pepsi-Cola bottle with a red-topped cork stopper with holes to neatly distribute the right amount of humidity. This collectible object was made as a project by my brother as a Cub Scout, circa 1955, and I deeply fault the ironing video for not using such a device!
In the vintage Polaroid picture shown, Mom and Dad in 1971, with Licorice, my favorite dog. The fenced-in dog run was built by Dad to accommodate this mongrel who we all loved.