Flat-iron stove in Jarville

When we visited the Musée de l'Histoire du Fer in Jarville-devant-Nancy, we enjoyed walking in the part with objects used in the house.

For the first time I discovered a flat-iron stove. I remember seeing my grand-mother putting two or three irons (big and small) on the wood stove, but I had never seen a flat-iron stove like this one.

The one on the picture is a coal stove, I think, as it is quite small. The work of the ironer was certainly not easier but perhaps a bit quicker if she had several irons ready for her job.

In the background of the picture, there is an old wood-burning stove with a small tank inside to have hot water ready all the time. In my village you can still see this type of stoves in a few kitchens standing next to the modern gascooker. On Sundays, before going to church, our grand-mothers used to put the big pan on one corner of the stove where it cooked slowly till their return. Once, in the 1940s or 1950s, my grand-parents' neighbour was told not to forget to put wood in the stove when his wife was going to mass. When she came back she discovered he had been so absent-minded that he had put a wood piece in the pan ! On this day they ate with nasty faces. My grand-father has laughed about it for ages.

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