"Cleanliness is next to Godliness," says my mother, as she looks at our
necks and hands and then makes us wash again and use plenty of soap. She says,
"Now, God gave us water, but soap I think was invented by the first mother in
this world. I hear women haven't changed much since the days of Eve."
All the mothers I know today make their boys use soap and water on their faces
and hands. Now ages ago people did not use the kind of soap we use. They mixed
wood ashes and water with lye and diluted that with water for cleaning purposes.
They used pure lye to dye their hair red which in those old days was very
fashionable.
The first real soap was made in the ninth century by
boiling the lye made of wood ashes with olive oil. Then gradually other oils and
fats were used. Finally another lye was invented which by boiling with fats made
hard soap.
Now I thought it would be interesting to find how soap was
made in our own country in the pioneer days.
As soap making along with
candle making, spinning, dyeing, weaving, and quilt making were considered
women's work I asked our neighbor lady. She told me about how she had helned her
mother make soap in the early days.
They bored small holes in the bottom
of a barrel. She would set it up about two feet off the ground on a slanting
board. As they used wood only for fuel, she saved all the wood ashes. She
preferred ashes from hardwood trees as ash, hickory and red oak. She would put a
bucket full of ashes into the barrel at a time. She would then tamp them down
and pour enough water over them to keep them damp. She would repeat that until
the large barrel was full of the ashes. Then she would let it stand for a week
or ten days to ripen.
She then would pour water on top of the ashes a
pail full at a time and let it run through the ashes into a trough. That was lye
water. It was very strong at first. She would keep on pouring water over the
ashes until the water that seeped through had no taste of lye.
Now while
she was collecting ashes in one barrel she had another barrel for all meat
scraps, crackling skins and fat, for in those days at butchering time nothing
was wasted.
On some nice day in the spring of the year she would put the
lye water in a big kettle and would put that waste fat and meat into it a little
at a time. She kept on putting it in until the lye would no longer dissolve the
meat. She would then let it cook slowly until it was thick as syrup. That was
soap.
She would let it cool and then put it in kegs for it was soft
soap. She usually would have about sixteen gallons of it.
It was made
from material on hand. It did not cost them a cent but their labor. It was their
only soap. It was used for all purposes, for bathing and washing clothes. It was
mixed with sand for scouring pots and pans. It was even used for punishment to
wash the mouths of boys and girls when they told lies.
In later years
when fire wood became scarce they used the manufactured concentrated lye and
made hard soap with it. Then gradually people started to use manufactured soap
until there was very little soap made at home.
Extracted 08 Nov 2018 by Norma Hass from Stories of Pioneer Days in La Salle County, Illinois, by Grammar Grade Pupils, published in 1932, page 77.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
