The Kitchen: An Evolution

Over the summer, Mary’s family would buy lots of produce - green beans, corn, pears, and peaches - and can everything to use throughout the year. 

“We would buy a gunny sack of green beans, and my brothers and I, we would snip off the ends and break them in half to be canned,” Mary remembers. 

Canning was a common practice in many 1950s homes, as it was a way for families to preserve food before freezers really took off. Mary remembers using different methods of canning for different things - pressure cooker for veggies and water bath for fruits. 

Both methods of canning use heat to create a vacuum that seals the jar, but different types of foods require different methods of canning. High acidity naturally protects against the growth of many microorganisms, so foods with higher acidities only need to be heated to 212 degrees fahrenheit in order to seal the jar (Canning Basics). This can be done just by placing jars on a rack in boiling water.

Low acidity foods on the other hand, need to be processed at much higher temperatures, which can be achieved using a pressure cooker. The pressure cooker places the jars under higher pressure, which heats them up. This creates a vacuum seal while also killing off any harmful microorganisms (Canning Basics). 

In December of 1965, Mary married Royce Thorpe, a quartermaster in the U.S. Navy. After a brief stint in the midwest, they settled in their own home back in Dallas, Oregon. Mary worked in insurance, and Royce was the local highschool's building superintendant. They had two kids, Jason (born 1973) and Andrea (born 1976).

After starting her own family, Mary still canned her own food at home. 

“We had a playpen,” she said, “I would put the playpen where I could see and talk to Jason while I was canning.” 

Even though Mary still canned her own food like she had with her mother as a kid, she was also able to experiment with new kitchen technology, including a Farberware Rotisserie. Mary remembers using the rotisserie often - it was convenient and she was working full time with two kids. 

In August of 1983 however, the convenience of the rotisserie turned into a horror.

Mary had taken a late lunch around three. During her lunch, she came home to get started on dinner. She put a roast on the rotisserie, and the rotisserie on the stove, just like she always did. 

Everything was fine, normal. 

When she got home with her kids at five, she stayed out in the driveway with Andrea while Jason went in through the side door. Moments later, he came back out. 

“Mom, the kitchen is on fire!” 

Mary went to go back inside, but Jason yelled, “NO. Never go inside when there's a fire, you HAVE to call the fire department.”

As it turns out, grease dripping off the roast had caught on fire while the rotisserie was still going. The fire had filled the house up with greasy smoke, which ruined most of their home. 

“Jason lost all his Star Wars toys and Andrea lost her Cabbage Patch Dolls,” Mary said, “But the scariest part was that the kids hadn't made their beds that morning, so you could see where their bodies would have been if the fire had happened at night.” 

The Thorpes ended up being out of their home for four months - while the fire had been localized to the kitchen, the smoke damage had been extensive. 

“We never bought another [rotisserie] again, let me tell you,” Mary said.