Vintage Superior range with warming oven and water reservoir

A change of plans took me to Fayetteville yesterday. When in town I usually check at one or more thrift stores. Actually, I confess, for the last thirty years thrift stores have been a favorite haunt in my hunt for items of interest. Yesterday I found something I have been looking for since we got the wood range you see on the right!

We found our Superior range in Paxico, Kansas at Mill Creek Antiques as pictured here in the fall of 1987. The brick red color of the porcelain finish was in good condition. I was thrilled about the ample space of the warming oven and the availability of hot water provided by the water reservoir located on the right side. The chrome finish of the towel bar and trim had seen hard use over the decades. (Our research later informed us of the highly toxic nature of redoing the chrome so we chose to leave it as is.) Visit Mill Creek Antiques online and to see more wood cookstoves: (http://www.millcreekantiques.com/cookstoves.html)

Jeanne and I opened doors and explored the three draft controls. We discovered the necessities including the ash carrier, grate bolt crank, and the lid lifter. On the back of the range we discovered this beautiful and useful antique cookstove had been manufactured in St. Louis, MO by Bridge, Beach and Co.

We traded for the range and soon bought the book, Woodstove Cookery: At Home on the Range, by Jane Cooper. This author and cook described a useful tool called a soot scraper as a “rectangular blade about one by three inches long which is attached to a long metal rod” used to “root around in the air passage surrounding the oven and pull out the soot and ashes.” We needed one, but until yesterday I had only seen the drawing in her book.

Yesterday I knew it when I saw it standing on the floor at the thrift store with the long handle towering over the blade. I snatched it up. Probably no one else in the store would know what it was or even want it. My soot scraper or stove rake cost two dollars.

This morning I tried the stove rake on our new Harman woodstove and it worked perfectly for cleaning out the ashes that collect around the ash pan. You can see the the clean out opening on the Superior range located below the oven door; it measures six inches long and two inches high; the blade on the tool I found measured four inches by two inches. My new tool worked like it was made for this range! As directed, I rooted around and raked the soot out on to newspapers. As I rooted and raked I disturbed a moveable object on the bottom of the chamber. What I discovered hidden there was a broken saucer of fine china.

Gold script letters on the back read “Theodore Haviland, Limoges, France, Patent Applied for”. I scrubbed the soot off and admired the elegant gold painted on the saucer edge and held it to the light to see the outline of my fingers through the delicate porcelain. My own mother had owned Haviland china we used for special occasions.

How and why did this damaged, but still treasured, piece of china come to be in the clean out chamber of this cookstove? How old was the china? We had guessed the age of our Superior range to be the first quarter of the 20th century. An online search revealed that Theodore Haviland took over from his father about 1890. The “Patent Applied for” would seem to indicate an early date also.

Who hid this gold-edged Haviland china plate in the antique wood range and why?

Theodore Haviland, Made in Limoges, France in the early 1900s

Curiosity about the possibilities sent me to learn more about the china maker. But nothing will likely satisfy my curiosity about the person who placed this unusual find in the clean out chamber of my range. My imagination carries me along. This memento pleases me. Simple surprises in the garden are expected pleasures in spring. Unforseen treasures do show up in thrift shops. Now I am reminded of unexpected treasures that exist in everyday chores like cleaning out ashes.

Photo credits: Paula photographed the Superior range when we first saw it in 1987 at Mill Creek Antiques in Paxico, KS.