Life in Eastern Tennessee in the 1940's and 1950's

[Sarge]

I was born near Limestone, Washington Co., TN, 11 Oct 1938. Grew up
in the heart of the East Tennessee Germanna home place. My mother was
a BROYLES (she's still living), and I have many, many Germanna
"cousins" from Washington Co.(including those non-Germanna German
families who married into the Germanna families): Broyles, Wilhoit,
Yager, Critselious, Barlow (Parlur), Bowman (Bauman), Bible (Beibel),
Painter (Bender), Bird (Vogel), Bitner, Bottles (Bortles), Brown
(Braun), Copp (Cupp), Burgner, Button, Carpenter (Zimmerman), Click
(Gluck), Clore (Klaar), and on and on.

One of the things I remember was my mother and grandmother making
soap. They would save up all the suet (fat) from the animals we
killed to eat, and save up all the wood ashes from the stoves and
fireplaces. The ashes were put into a hopper, "V"-shaped, wide at the
top and narrowed to just a crack at the bottom. Once the hopper was
packed full, water was poured over the ashes and drained out at the
bottom. The liquid that came out was LYE. That liquid was placed
into an iron kettle along with the fat and cooked until it was
condensed down to a very thick slurry. It was then poured into wooden
molds, about 4" x 6" and 2" thick, where it congealed. Once it
cooled, the molds were turned upside down and the resulting soap was
dumped out and then stored in a barrel. The soap was used for washing
clothes, for washing dishes, and, unfortunately, for taking a bath. A
bath, which occurred usually on Saturday night, took place in the
kitchen in a Nr. 10 galvanized wash tub. Hot water was poured in, and
in we went one at a time, using the lye soap. It was NOT a pleasant
experience, but we WERE clean, guaranteed. No bacteria or virus could
stand up to lye soap.

More later,
Sarge