An old coal miner once said the best thing about chopping wood is you get warm twice. Once when cutting and splitting, and again then when it burns. Mat Verhonick, 85-years-old at the time of this 1974 photo knew the lesson well.
The rows of firewood evidence his chopping while the wheelbarrow with metal wheel speaks of tradition. Did I mention Mat was old-school? He and his wife Martha lived in a Krain farm house that was heated with firewood, lit by kerosene lamp, and serviced by rainwater – or from a spring when rain didn’t fall.
They used neither electricity nor telephone and certainly no television. Plus Mat lived his entire life, except for the first five days in that same home north of Enumclaw.
Mat harvested the fields around the farm with a scythe made of razor sharp Austrian spring steel, just as his Slovenian ancestors had done for generations.
He bragged of plucking his long whiskers rather than shaving, but remarked to the interviewer, “You’d think they wouldn’t grow back, but they do.”
His homestead was a study of old tools and implements with Verhonick adding, “I don’t give a damn for style. As long as something works, why throw it away?” This is the third of a four-part series featuring 1974 photos by Josef Scaylea that once appeared in the Seattle Times and come courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian.
