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Front Hall - Parlour Dining Room - Bedroom Den - Activities |
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The Kitchen
On the other side of the room, there's a wooden dough bin. Pioneer husbands used
You probably didn't expect to see that double-barreled shotgun mounted on the wall. We forget how bad the mice were in the old days. I'm kidding! Actually, Bill Roedde kept his hunting rifle on just such a mount when he lived in the house. He used the gun to shoot ducks in nearby Stanley Park.
The low sink is the first thing you notice in the kitchen. Matilda Roedde was a bit under five feet tall, and the sink was probably made especially for her. The lip of the sink is only a couple of feet off the floor. It's so low, I could almost reach it!
to build such things as special gifts for their wives. A woman would knead and form her loaves of bread on the flat cover of the dough bin. The loaves were then put inside the bin, the cover was closed, and the dough was left to rise close
to the stove. The dough bin was useful inside and out, since it provided an extra work surface in a kitchen with so few built-in cupboards. On top of the doughbin is the hand-cranked coffee-grinder. The Roedde family preferred coffee over tea.
Vancouver is a big city now, but a hundred years ago it was an outpost of civilization in the middle of a vast wilderness. Bill once shot a bear at Kitsilano Beach, on the shore of English Bay. Today, that spot is in plain view of dozens of high rise apartments!
Like the dough bins, indoor drying racks for clothes made use of the warmth around the kitchen stove. There was no electricity, so there were no clothes dryers like there are today. However, the absence of electricity doesn't mean there weren't any labor-saving gadgets. Actually, there were all kinds, especially in the kitchen. To see them all, check out the artifact box!
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