No longer the pretty white kitchen appliance that delighted the preacher’s wife as it froze water into ice cubes and kept leftover fried chicken cold for midnight snack raids, today it is a cool condominium for Joe Biskup’s fishing worms. After being on the job almost non-stop for more than 60 years, it still can make ice, maintains a cool climate and keeps a cache of earthworms comfortable.
Biskup, 71, a long-time Buckholts blacksmith, paid the church $25 for the old appliance about 40 years ago with the aim to store cold sodas to sell to his clients. About 20 years ago, he bought another second-hand refrigerator and delegated the antique Kelvinator to a back corner of his cluttered but efficient blacksmith shop.
Today, it still stands - back to the wall - beside blacksmith tools and a large air compressor, silently keeping its storage contents cool as it was originally instructed by its creators. While the cold box is mostly removed from its original appearance, the chrome Kelvinator label still gleams proudly at the top of the door, and its well-built motor emits a hardly audible hum.
A 1940s-era advertisement for Kelvinator refrigerators enticed buyers to “Get the best things first . . . Get Kelvinator.”
Kelvinator refrigerators originated in the early 1900s and were named in honor of Lord Kelvin, a British physicist who developed a scale of measuring temperature. Kelvinator was one of two dozen home refrigerators offered to U.S. homes in 1916. A few years later, the Kelvinator Company dominated an 80 percent share of the electric refrigerator market.
Kelvinator has operated under numerous partners and owners since its beginnings and is now owned by National Refrigeration in Honea Path, S.C. A spokeswoman said the company had no employees or resources, which might disclose why Joe Biskup’s antique appliance is still in the race.
Biskup, who basically ignores the work-worn fridge as he operates hammer and forge, hasn’t a clue why the old fixture keeps on trucking. Biskup estimates the refrigerator is from the World War II era, but he has not attempted to track down its correct age.
So unobtrusive in his busy blacksmith shop, the appliance with its discolored finish and rust blends into the scenery, and has not been an attention-getter among customers or visitors. One antique dealer expressed interest in buying the refrigerator because his dad once serviced Kelvinator appliances, but no firm price was made, and the instrument continues to occupy its little corner.
“I don’t do anything to it,” Biskup said. “It just sits there and I put my worms in there.”
Biskup said he was unaware if any parts were replaced before he bought the appliance. His only contribution to the refrigerator’s well-being was a rewiring job that came after the device caught fire one day.
Joyce Cavanaugh, Texas AgriLife Extension family economics specialist at Texas A&M University in College Station, said old refrigerators still on the job are not all that rare, but they are not very energy efficient and normally are retired to junkyard status.
Did they actually make better appliances in the 20th century? “I think if you asked the average person on the street, they would say yes,” Ms. Cavanaugh said.
Janie Harris, Texas AgriLife Extension housing specialist, said longevity of an appliance typically “has to do with its care and maintenance and if it’s been kept clean, but appliances are a lot like cars. Sometimes you get a lemon; other times you have an appliance that is very functional for years and years.”
Replacing an older appliance can save $75 a year in energy costs, she said.
Old refrigerators have not earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, said Jamie Panas, the publication’s U.S. public relations and marketing assistant in New York. But Frigidaire in 2000 celebrated the 85th anniversary of the household refrigerator with an “Oldest Fridge Hunt” yielding a real Methuselah from 1924, a Frigidaire with wooden cabinets and a sulfur dioxide coolant system. YouTube also has a current oldest fridge contest featured online.
Syndicated columnist Heloise, cleaning out some boxes, unearthed her grandmother’s electric iron from the 1930s, inspiring the Heloise search in 2001 for the nation’s oldest refrigerator. Thousands of readers responded with photos and entries of some genuine appliance relics, all still operating. So popular was Heloise’s oldest refrigerator hunt that Good Housekeeping magazine featured the results in a 2002 edition.
“We actually went back to the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s,” Heloise said. “One of them was turquoise, forget the avocado green and harvest gold. It was a short squatty one, the top of the door was sort of rounded and it had a big silver handle . . . and it still worked.”
