So this stove is pretty beat up, but it has a story. My grandparents, dad, and uncle relocated from Southern California to Notus, Idaho in 1964, when my dad was 5 or 6. My grandma's family was not a fan of my grandpa, for a multitude of reasons, including knocking up my grandma at the age of 16, which is how my dad came to be. The story goes that my grandpa's brother (my great uncle) funded this move in the interest of keeping his brother alive. The grand plan they came up with was my grandpa raising pigs to farm. From what I've been told, this was a rough upbringing for my dad and uncle. Years of abuse, extremely poor, very little hope. The home they lived in was a 400sq ft, cinder block wall, basement house with an uninsulated roof on top. My dad and uncle's "bedroom" was a couple twin beds up in the uninsulated "attic". There was no heat when they moved in, so the story goes, allegedly, my grandpa traded a stolen shotgun to an antique shop for this 1870s Great Western parlor stove in Nyssa, OR (just across the Idaho/Oregon border). This was their only heat, and Idaho can have some GNARLY winters. My dad and uncle have both told me that the stove pipe coming through the attic was the only heat in their "bedroom", frequently waking up to their glass of water by the bed frozen solid. From what I was told, they more or less lived outside in the summer due to the extreme heat.
Anyway, this stove has a storied past. My grandpa loaded it clear full of coal at one point and blew the backside of the stove all to hell. Some farmer stick welded it half-*** back together, but it is beat up. From what I was told, it was beat up when they got it initially. My grandma painted the flaking nickel-plated decorative pieces every year with silver paint to try to keep it presentable. Years later, my grandpa left - the story goes that my dad at 12 years old ran him off at gun point, after he was seen beating my aunt, who was just a baby at that time. My grandma stayed in that home until she eventually remarried in the early 1990s, this time to a much more kind man, my step grandpa. I remember going to her house as a young child before she moved out , and I remember that stove. The basement house and farm were to be sold off, with the house to be demo'd. My uncle went there before the demo and grabbed the stove. This stove lived in his storage shed in Bakersfield, CA for awhile, and made the move to Parma, ID when he moved back.
When I bought my house in Vancouver, WA in 2017, I asked if I could have the stove. Initially I wanted to restore it and use it inside, but I guess Washington isn't a fan of wood burning stoves, and like I said, this stove is pretty beat up. So.... it lives outside on my patio, somewhat protected from the elements by a large fir tree and a dogwood. It's a connection to my family's sordid past. It's a reminder of how good my life is in comparison to prior generations of my family. My grandpa sorta got his **** together later in life, so my brother and I never saw him for what my dad and uncle did. I'm grateful for that. My aunt, grandma, grandpa, and step grandpa are all gone now, but this stove still puts out heat when it is needed, and it reminds me of them. We really enjoy spring, fall, and occasional winter fires out on the upper patio. Anyway, that's the story of the stove.
