Why do you own an antique stove?

For many years I lived in the house my late grandmother used to occupy in New Orleans. In it was her stove which was an old Okeefe&Merritt.

Not only did it remind me of my grandmother but it was a constant source of comment from visitors. I quickly fell in love with it for it’s unique and archaic charm and also for the way it performed after providing constant service for over half a century. I often said of it that it will still be here long after I am gone.

Sadly, that was not the case as it was washed away with Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters. It can be said that it took nothing less than an act of God to keep it from working.

I shopped around for a new stove but everything looked cheesy and lightweight with no substance compared to grandma’s old Okeffe & Merritt. Luckily for me my mother’s 1956 Brown Stoveworks gas range had been in storage for many years high and dry! It was unmistakable bearing the chip in the oven door I put there as a boy playing marbles in the kitchen!

It was a very rare 30″ so it fit in my contemporary cabinet opening. It has a Robert Shaw “Thermal Eye” or burner with a brain which works fine.

I was unable to find a technician locally to get the oven working and calls to Brown Stoveworks (which is still in business) proved fruitless.

My plan now is to carefully dismantle it and send the oven parts off to be rebuilt. With new valves and a few pieces rechromed (My mother, now 85 insists I leave that chip) and the clock/timer repaired, I’ll have an appliance which I grew up with and will serve me the rest of my life barring any natural disasters!

Why own an antique stove? The were produced at a time when American engineers competed to design the finest product imaginable. Todays engineers design the cheapest to produce utility imaginable. And it shows.

Ken

New Orleans, La.

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