1937 Monarch Stove

1937 Monarch wood burning and electric stove

I'm not quite sure I understand what I am seeing here. An electric stove that also burns wood? Why? Because electrical power was unreliable back in 1937? Or maybe the price of firewood was volatile, so when it was cheap you burned wood, but when the price jumped up because - who knows, the wood cutters union went on strike, or they got drunk, or whatever, you switched to electricity. Or maybe it was when you were in the money and you could pay the electric bill, you used electricity, but when you were out of work and the power company shut off your power, you could still cut your own wood and cook dinner. I dunno, it's just the strangest thing I have seen in a while.

50 years ago Jody & I stopped at the Tree Frog commune, or what was left of it, in northern New Mexico. A friend of mine from Ohio, one John R. Montgomery, black sheep of the Montgomery Lumber Company in Newark, used to live there. Mentioning his name to the couple living there got us a rustic cabin to sleep in. They had a wood burning stove in their cabin and the woman claimed she could boil water in ten minutes starting with a cold stove.

The man was making a living making silver jewelry. I remember seeing him at work one morning filing a silver button over the foam lid of an egg carton. (Were egg cartons even made of foam back then?) The lid was to catch the bits of silver that were being filed off of the button. Strangest thing I had ever seen, up till then. 

He had had a heart attack. He was probably only 30 years old but he looked like he weighed 300 pounds. The doctor put him on a 1200 Calorie-a-day diet. There was no running water, but there was an irrigation ditch maybe four feet across full of a flowing stream of ice cold water, if you wanted a bath. Mine was brief. Bear Mountain was nearby. We tried climbing it but when we got to around 10,000 feet I ran out of air.

While I am talking about old times, IAman asked the hostess an Banning's Pies yesterday for the non-smoking section which got a chuckle out her since smoking hasn't been allowed in restaurants in Oregon since 1999. I knew it happened a few years ago, but 20 years? Boy, time sure flies.

Via Posthip Scott and Ebay