Imagery in Those Winter Sundays

The father in this story seems old-fashioned by today's standards. He's tough, rugged, a man's man. But to create this effect, Robert Hayden specifically describes a harsh winter Sunday with words like "blueblack cold".  Hayden sympathized with this harsh man: "...with crakced hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather...No one ever thanked him." The image of this young boy waking up on an ice cold winter day to his father who warmed the house. What really puzzled me was the "chronic angers of that house". Is this a reference to his father abusing him? If it is, it's a little puzzling to me that he would be so grateful and sympathetic of his father. Maybe he is trying to realize why his father is beating him. Not sure, definitely a question I want answered.