Saving My Bright Copper Kettles

How Bright Copper Kettles Transformed a Life and Gave Meaning To It

There have always been times when copper kettles seemed to overshadow the season.  They were always there boiling water and always at the end they would whistle their victory song.  They didn’t make these sounds intentionally, no, these were always purely mechanical:  hot water creates steam an pressure.  The Pressure forces the steam through a series of vents at the top of the kettle and different tones are made.  As the steam made its way down the vent tube at the top of the kettle, it sequentially runs into different size escape holes and over this short course could produce a “little song.”  The longer the escape vent, the more tones were possible, and the more different songs could be made.   Nothing miraculous to write home about.  The sounds these Copper Kettles make just seem more crisp and meaningful during the winter months.   And, maybe it is because the air is colder and crisper, and harder with heavier molecules that the sounds they make are more poignant. 

The Copper Kettles, were always bright, shiny with spotless appearance.  They were never allowed to tarnish or turn spotted or dark.  They were spotlessly polished after each and every use.  They were used before every meal to heat up water for tea and coffee, and for other foods that needed hot water, and they were kept busy keeping hot water ready for use.  But after each meal was finished, they were taken to the polish station, and there for hours, six to eight of these Bright Copper Kettles were sent to be scrubbed down, and then with the appropriate solvents were scrubbed down until every spot or mark was taken off the Kettles.  Once they were cleansed, they were polished for 30 minutes to an hour each, until they were restored.  Once properly restored and hand scrubbed and polished in the work room of the kitchen, they were returned to their exact station, until needed again.  We had seven primary Bright Copper Kettles.

In addition to the Large Bright Copper Kettles we had, each of us had a smaller individual Bright Copper Kettle which were for pouring individually sized cups of coffee.  Soon as the water was used out of the smaller Kettles, they were refilled for the next cup to be made.  So, that made for an impressive row of Bright Copper Kettles.  When they were all polished and lined up they made an impressive row of Copper Kettles.  And, when they were all full of hot water and all singing their different songs, they made the most impressive song.  A song I learned to love in my childhood, and a song that never seemed to change.  It was just that it was the same song every winter and it was different from the song that all these Copper Kettles made every other season of the year.  And, through all those years as a child growing up in that house, and seeing all those Copper Kettles, singing their little song during my most favorite season, put a certain expectation in my life for the cold season of the year.  And, I always was so impressed by how they were cared for. It could take an hour or more for the larger Copper Kettles, as much as an hour even on the small individual-sized Kettles.

Believe it or not, there was one individual in the kitchen, Stedman, who was in total and complete charge of the cooking utensils.  And, he was supervisor over all steam kettles whose care was assigned to Michaela Jan’et. She had been in her position for 16 years.   She did not leave the kitchen until every Copper Kettle was sitting in its proper and assigned location, having been scrubbed in a solvent, and then polished in the best Copper Kettle Polish known to man.  Jan’et had two helpers and they were equally qualified to service the Copper Service.  Ange’la was the senior Copper Technician and had been there eleven years Lottie had been working there in our kitchen for almost eight years.  Jan’et, Ange’la, and Lottie had a total of 35 years of experience with Copper Kettles alone and their proper maintenance.  Stedman, was 22 years in the family, and was here in the house working for my grandfather, when my father was but a young man.  But, he was not a preparer of food and neither did he bake, or cook, but every piece of utensil, every saucer, dish, tureen, server, flatware.  If it was used to serve food, or prepare it became his responsibility, and cleaning it was labor intensive.   He had five other service technicians to support the maintenance of the preparation hardware.  In addition, there was the prep staff, cooks, servers, and there were always seven of them.  They baked every day, the cooks, cooked every day three meals a day.  But there was ten of us.  Plus, there was 15 of us every day and sometimes many more.  Including our parents, and 8 children.  There were also our two cousins, and their mother, and our mother’s parents.  And, that if none of our friends stayed over for dinner and there often were friends.  And, it was not uncommon for my father’s business associates to be invited for dinner.   

It was not uncommon for our ten family members to become a twenty-person dinner array.  The hustle and bustle of food service was the central aspect of the house.  That and the linen service and clothes care team.  All and all, it took twenty-seven paid employees to take care of the house and the people that lived there. In addition to all those, there were the outdoor landscapers.  They were also necessary to keep the house and yards in top shape. In total 34 people worked for our father in the employee of the home and its necessities.

 

Times began getting harder in the early 1920 and the Rumble Seats and Running Boards became a sign of the good times.  These also eroded and by the end of the twenties business was at a standstill and no one knew where things were going next.  Our course, everyone has heard of the Great Depression.  And, when it struck in full force, there was no money to pay for our staff.  They all had to be terminated and we were left to fend for ourselves.  We hardly knew what to do, and so the house and the grounds were to be maintained in a stasis basis.  When this all happened, I was grown as a person, and occasionally saw Stedman, Michaela Jan’et, and Angel’a, but none of the others. 

The last time, I was in the old house, I made a special effort to go back to he kitchen area just to see how it looked.  And, I was surprised, no elated to see that every single one of those Copper Kettles were still right where they had been left seventeen years earlier in 1919 when the house had been effectively mothballed.  They were just as bright and just as highly polished as they every were.  I did not know how this could be true after all this time, but they were there.  Some years later, I found out that Michaela Jan’et had come in once a month for all those years and re-polished every single Copper Kettle still in the kitchen.  More than 34 pieces, all on her own, and for no compensation.  She had put more than 2500 hours of her own time into the continued maintenance of those Kettles.  Three years later, after 20 years of paid-less service, I compensated Michaela Jan’et for her years of faithful service to the Home we lived in for two generations.  It was a pleasure and an honor to pay her for loyalty, and I took great comfort knowing that she did it out of loyalty and faithfulness to the home and those she served for so very long.  I had always felt a deep abiding loyalty for those people that worked in our house.  They were the lynch-pins to the successful functioning of the Home.  They were always responsible and professional.  And, they did their work with loyalty, but always appreciation because they knew how much it took to keep up a staff so large.  We needed them to take care of the enormous amounts of material that had to be moved, cleaned and maintained, and they needed us to give them the income they required to run their families.  It was a symbiotic relationship that moved and vacillated as it worked. 

We hated that it had to end, but as in all things, ends come.  I eventually went to the house and removed the Copper Kettles because they as much as any thing symbolized to me my entire positive recollection, my fondest memories of the Old Home.  No one else of my brothers and sisters were interested.  Those Copper Kettles are the single items in that Home that had any meaning for me, and I had them packaged individually, with all the cleaners, and cleaning cloths and polishes. 

Those Copper Kettles have now been in my sole possession for eighteen years, and I have them mounted on the back wall of our kitchen in the exact same sequence that they were mounted at the old Home place.  I would gladly have Michaela Jan’et come to take care of them for me, but she is no longer with us, and I miss her, but I have found another technician who comes in every three months to take care of them for me.  It is a ten day to two-week challenge, but I gladly pay for the service just to keep those Bright Copper Kettles looking the very brightest and the very shiniest I can get them.