The Hearth is the Home
On July 14, 1948, Lois Kelley wrote "Dear Mother and Dad - Today is beginning clear, fresh, and cool, and I couldn't be happier because. . ."
Happy because of life on the farm with her husband, Bob, and their young son, Bobby.. Happy because of the way the place was responding to their nourishing touch. Happy because of the rabbits and peas and hay, and because "the baby is due in only five weeks."
In 1948, the Kelleys had settled on eleven acres in Rockville, Connecticut. The house, barn, hayfields, and berry patches all needed attention. The work and the record-breaking cold and snow of their first winter hadn’t chilled their enthusiasm for the future. They warmed to the learning and achievements ahead.
Kelley family farmhouse in Rockville, Connecticut, 1948. / THF723661
In the spring and summer of 1948, in her regular letters to her parents, Lois described learning how to plow a field, milk cows, harvest vegetables, and process meats. As the August birth of their daughter, Diana neared, Lois turned to indoor concerns like pie and shortcake, buying a freezer, making curtains, and increasingly, heating the house.
The Kelleys applied to add expenses for a new furnace to their mortgage. In July 1948, they received word that the request to add the furnace was denied. Undaunted, Lois reflected "all we have to do is ask ourselves whether we'd rather be in the apartment where there's heat and hot water, where dirt doesn't get tracked in, and weeds don't grow—and we feel absolutely blissful about this no matter what it lacks."
By October the Kelleys had a plan for winter. "We have another oil heater now - double burner living room type of a rather old vintage. . . so. . . we have our lovely stove in the kitchen, two double burner heaters (for living room and bathroom), and one single burner heater (for our bedroom). I don't see how we can help but be warm, even if this winter were to be as ferocious as the last. Just the same - I'm going to get Bobby some long-legged underwear - and some for myself too. (Red if possible.) Bob has a couple of sets from the Army.''
Detail from a letter from Lois Kelley to her parents, September 22, 1948, pg. 1. / THF723677
In February 1949, as the winter bore on, Bob intoned his favorite weather saying: "When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen." The Kelleys layered the home in curtains, storm windows, and insulation, and began to discuss central heat and hot water in earnest.
Bob Kelley removing his boots near the heating stove in the Kelley house kitchen, Rockville, Connecticut, 1948. / THF723649
Over the winter of 1948-49 the family's finances improved. Thus, the bank approved their furnace loan in late August 1949, but the Kelleys still needed approval from the Veterans Administration (VA) Loan Guaranty Service. Anticipating delays there, the Kelleys would rely on the fireplace, but first they had to repair the chimney. They decided to build a Heatilator—a steel-lined fireplace that circulated heated air.
There were surprises. Lois Kelley recounted these with humor in letters to her parents.
August 26: "Bob started tearing down the plaster around the old chimney, the wainscoting, and the wall where the fireplace is to go. . . After Bob had torn up a few boards and then fell through. . . the sub-flooring, we decided that we need a new floor as well as a new ceiling and walls. . ."
August 29: “We ripped up the remaining floorboards this morning before Bob went to work, and just to make it unanimous, I fell through up to my hip. . . he's busy here now, putting in new joists. . . . One of the old ones practically disintegrated under Bob’s touch yesterday, it was so rotten!
And the chimney!. . . When Bob started to take it down, it split in half and fell, one half falling through the upstairs hall ceiling, and the other half landing on top of the guest bed, clean sheets and all!” The VA assessor chose that moment to arrive for his inspection.
Charlie Magdefrau replacing floor joists in the Kelley house living room, Rockville, Connecticut, 1949. / THF723664
The fireplace was finished before winter. On October 16, the day after their first test fire, "Bob started a real blaze, took off his shoes and took up the paper."
But delays continued with the furnace, as Lois revealed in her regular letters to her parents. Two days after that cozy fireplace fire, they signed papers for the furnace loan, though it would be five more cold weeks before they heard from the contractor. On November 23 he apologized that the steel strike had delayed a few parts. Midway through December Lois bemoaned that they were "just about due to run out of our cordwood." On the previous Saturday morning, "when we got up there was a skim of ice in the toilet. . . We're really ready for baths!" she complained.
Finally, on December 20, 1949, she exclaimed, "Yes we have heat!" For the first time in over a year, the family could take hot baths or invite overnight guests. Their yearly Christmas card featured the Heatilator with its advertised "Fireplace Charm plus Room Wide Comfort."
Kelley family Christmas card featuring Bobby hanging his sister's stocking above the Heatilator, December 1949. / THF723655
Having secured some creature comforts at the farmhouse in Rockville, Connecticut, the Kelleys turned their ambitions toward a larger farm. In 1953 they purchased a house constructed in the 1750s, located on Bear Swamp Road in nearby Andover, Connecticut. When they applied for financing, their bank said that it wasn't their "policy to take houses so old or unmodernized." The realtor, who owned an old house himself, helped them find a banker who also liked old houses, and the papers were signed.
South side of the Kelley family home with ell and vegetable garden in the foreground (positioned where the sun shown most intently), Bear Swamp Road, Andover, Connecticut, 1953. / THF723673
Lois described their new winter preparations in a note to her parents on August 24, 1953. "Since we weren't able to get a heating system from the money derived from the other house, we have bought instead a gas chain saw. We call it our heating system. . ." With no regrets for leaving the Rockville furnace behind, she added, "We may not be as warm this winter as we might be. . . but we are certainly going to have a lot more fun than a furnace and radiators ever gave anyone!"
Wood cutting often took a neighborly tone. "Sunday we went over to the Hetzels' for an eat-and-run breakfast. . . the men all came back to cut wood. . . in return for their day helping us cut wood, we would take Sunday and cut wood for them."
The Hetzel family visiting the Kelley family, Bear Swamp Road, Andover, Connecticut, 1953. / THF723667
Life on Bear Swamp Road found the Kelleys shuttling between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The fireplaces on the central chimney that originally heated the house had been “updated” with layers of brick and plaster. In a move that was typical of the Kelleys, not just resisting but reversing trends of modernization, they began to look behind the walls.
Lois explained in an August 1953 letter: "We worked up our nerve and started chipping away plaster on the long room wall to see how large the fireplace had originally been. It was going to be only a small piece of plaster but by now the whole wall is nearly uncovered…"
By the end of 1953 plaster removal revealed four fireplaces all vented by the central chimney. The Kelleys restored the original cooking hearth and ashlar stone firebox. They heated the house with two cast-iron box stoves, Fire King and Dudley, that burned nearly constantly. Each stove—with their names cast into their sides—seemed to have a personality. Dudley was the "Big Guy!" Eight-year-old Bobby kept the wood boxes filled but Bob emptied them as fast, stoking the stoves.
Bob Kelley maintaining the heating stove, Dudley, in the Kelley farmhouse, Andover, Connecticut, 1955. / THF723675
The combination of wood stoves and hearth kept the large farmhouse snug. As Lois explained in a letter dated December 21, 1953: "We were tickled with our stoves during the cold snap. At times, although 10-15° outside, it was almost uncomfortably warm in here."
To the Kelleys, the Rockville house with its 1950s conveniences could not compare with the 1750 farm at Bear Swamp Road. Wood heat and the stone hearth were the center of the home and the feature of their 1954 Christmas card, as well as the center of the Kelleys' growing interest in historic preservation which shaped the rest of their lives.
Christmas Card showing the restored fireplace, Andover, Connecticut, 1954. / THF723671
This article was written by Diana “Daisy” Kelley, Curatorial Research Volunteer, The Henry Ford, with Debra A. Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment, The Henry Ford. The stories and pictures are from the Lois Kelley collection at The Henry Ford.
You can read more about the Kelley family in "Kids on the Farm" and about their stewardship of a sugar bush on their second farm as they supplemented their food supply and farm income in "Maple Trees and Family: A Long-Term Relationship."
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