The Florida Room

Heating the farmhouse was always an interesting challenge.  The Ben Franklin wood-stove that was in the living room was installed because it was suppose to help heat the house.  While it probably was a great idea, it had the effect of just heating one room to the point of boiling while the bedrooms were shockingly brisk.  Extra insulation was added to the house in an attempt to help cut down the heating bills, but the alure of cheap heat from the 40 acres of woods Ema and Gumpy had proved to be too tempting to ignore.

Eventually, the old Ben Franklin stove was replaced with the wood burning furnace in the basement.  It was hooked up to the blower for the gas furnace so the heat of the fire could be circulated evenly throughout the house.  With the exception of the basement, which is where the wood burning furnace was located.  The basement quickly became known as the Florida Room.

Keep in mind that the farmhouse was built in the 1870's.  The stone walls of the basement have long since been mortared with cement.  The floor is a combination of hard packed dirt with some cement slab thrown in.  That part of the foundation is only under the original half of the house.  The kitchen as we know it was expanded several years after the house was built and the sun porch was converted to a family room when my mom was a little kid.  Both additions sit on a very short crawlspace,  which has to make a mouse feel clostrophobic.  Most of the ceiling in the basement is so short that as an adult, I can only stand straight in a few select areas.  It is now dark, dingy and usually damp.

The Florida Room was where you would find Gumpy most winter nights because it was so toasty.  He kept a few lawn chairs down there for comfortable seating while he unthawed from various chores around the farm or dodged another of Ema's admonishments.  As a kid, I loved spending time down there with the adults.  My dad and Gumpy would sometimes have grown-up conversations that I didn't get chased from in the Florida Room.  While I hear tales of the wine he use to keep down there, I never witnessed any drinking.  Knowing Gumpy, he absolutely had at least one bottle of something hidden down there!

One winter, my Aunt Mary was unemployed and to earn money for smokes, Gumpy had her splitting wood for the furnace.  I know she was in the best shape of her life because I was in great shape for being a scrawny little kid.  Gumpy would give me a little cash just for stacking wood.  I remember thinking I must be stacking wood to the ceiling althought I'm now sure I got the many stacks at least four feet high.  After I finished my work, he would put me in charge of keeping the fire going for a few minutes.  It was a duty I always undertook with the utmost care.

The wood burning has long since been sold.  After retiring, my grandparents started going to Florida every winter, so the Florida Room was no longer a necessity.  I have not split or stacked firewood in years.  The only reason I go into the basement anymore is to make sure the sump pump works in the summer and the pipes are drained in the winter.  Cobwebs abound in the basement.  I duck everytime I go down the stairs leading from the bathroom so I do not hit my head on the wood support at the base of the stairs.  Gumpy isn't there either.  But the memory of being there with him has not faded one bit.