by Peggy Chanley
(the Aunt)
One of my most treasured possessions is the Ballard cast iron bean pot. That pot isn’t worth much in dollars, but at approximately 126 years old and after over 60 years of use, it is rich in family memories. Every day, the pot sat on the back of the wood burning cook stove with mouth-watering smells wafting throughout the house.
The pot was put away in 1953 after REMC had come to our remote area in Crawford County, English, Indiana. That was when we got our first electric stove and refrigerator and thought we really had come up in the world.
The pot sits in the kitchen on my work table. And I think it looks rather majestic. Often in passing, I give it a pat and think back on my life in rural southern Indiana.
In those moments, I see myself again as a young girl in pigtails and overalls watching (and sometimes helping) my mother prepare those hearty, delicious meals. I can still see her hands after all these years. They had character and were a reminder of how hard she worked and of how hard we all worked on the farm. After Mom’s death, those hands haunted me and still do at times.
As a young child, I was a bit of a wild thing running around on the farm and getting into pretty much everything around me. But, by around 12 years of age, I had begun to care somewhat about my looks. This was especially true when it was time for the English Reunion. The reunion was the big event of the year and about the only one held in our neck of the woods. It was a bit like a fair with games, rides, food, and lots of socializing.
One evening before the reunion, Mom was at the barn milking the cows and I decided to try my hand at cooking supper. Well, the fire just did not want to start in that old wood cook stove. But, I had my mind made up that I’d get that fire started though. And boy did I ever. In the end, I got it started – with a bang!
Now, I knew better. But, I still poured kerosene into the stove anyway. Not only did the fire light, the stove became a fire-breathing dragon once the door burst open with flames began shooting out. The burner lids on the top of the stove flew up and the old bean pot danced.
After the dragon breathed its fire, my left arm and face felt a little too warm and it was then I smelled the scorched hair. Again, this was around time that I was beginning to really pay attention to my appearance. And as I stared at the mirror, I saw that not one eyelash remained on my left eye. Thankfully, that was about all the damage done, except for some kerosene that spilled into the skillet of potatoes I was planning to fry.
When Mom came in from the barn, I had to tell her what happened as the kitchen reeked of kerosene. As Mom often did, she just started laughing. When she saw my missing eyelashes, she laughed harder. And when Dad came into the house, I asked him, “Do you notice anything?” He immediately replied with, “What happened to your eyelashes?” Evidently, my missing lashes were noticeable. And in that moment, I knew that I wouldn’t be dazzling anyone at the English Reunion with my good looks that year.
If only this old pot could talk. Though in a way it really does tell its stories when I let myself drift back in time.
Epilogue: The Ballard Bean Pot Saga
by Tressa Ballard
(the Niece)
Bean pot’s got a crack in it.
The rolling pin resting in the pot to the right side of the photo belonged to my grandma. She brought it into the family around 1928 at the time she married my grandpa.
My great-grandma brought that bean pot with her when she and my great-grandfather settled into their new home around 1895.
They raised two boys and three girls there. It was the house where my grandpa, great-uncle, great-aunts, uncle, aunt, my dad, a half-dozen cousins, and probably some neighbor folk were born. It’s where my grandma passed. It’s where my parents retired to after buying back the land and house and rehabilitating it.
It’s our homeplace; complete with hand-chipped grave markers, penciled signatures of family members preserved and sealed into the walls, dozens of old toys and tools and rusted farm equipment found hiding in the dirt, and occasionally a shadowy mist showing up on our security cameras.