lye soap

lye[i]Soap-making[i] Most of the soap was homemade from animal fat cooked with a lye liquid boiled from the ashes that we took from our wood stoves. The lye was strong enough if it ate a piece of cloth when it was dipped into it for a minute. Then a big boiler was put on the stove and the fat was rendered out. We could not get tallow or pork fat or anything like that and had to use seal fat. The boiler was made of iron and had four legs. Mother had me stand at the side of the stove for an hour each day pouring the lye into the fat a cup at a time until the fat was cooked. It took about seven days. When the soap was cooked she took about a half cup of coarse salt and about a pint of water to separate the soap from the lye. Then it was put away to cool for three days and then cut out into blocks. [over] [reverse] [i]Childhood Memories[i] 11 After all this work we would get about three pounds of soap. By the time I got married we could buy Gillet's lye so I used to make my soap in fifteen minutes. I had it a lot easier. The _lye soap_ was used for all the hard work - scrubbing floors and washing heavy clothes. There was no Dutch Cleanser. Our wood floors had to be scrubbed with sand and cork once a week. The Labrador girl learned to do all this kind of work when she was about twelve years old. People always had to keep working at something to make ends meet.PRINTED ITEM G. M. Story JUN 1974 JH JUN 1974Not usedNot usedWithdrawnChecked by Jordyn Hughes on Tue 23 Jun 2015, Reverse side of card at L_1630