TRANSCRIPT

"[Mother and] I made soap here - hard soap.

At first, I'd better tell you about how we got the lye, eh? We filled this barrel with ashes. In the bottom of the barrel they'd made, oh, six or seven holes. They'd set it up so they could put a pan underneath it. Every morning they'd pour a pail of water on the top of these ashes and it'd seep down through. Apparently it had to be soft water. Some wells are hard mineral water, but our spring was soft water. Mother ... was very particular, she used to catch the rain water if she could. And every morning she'd put this pail of water on top of the ashes until she got enough lye.

Now I can't remember the portions of the lye and the tallow - the grease. It was the tallow from cows, that kind of thing. It wasn't the grease from pigs. It had to be from animals, the tallow. Now I can't remember the portions.

She used to put this lye in ... these huge iron kettles. ... She'd have one of these set up over a little stove, so she could have a fire there. She'd put so much water, so much lye, and this tallow, and she'd boil it. She knew when it was just the right mixture, when it was finished. And she'd let it cool and then she stored it in the ... old basement. I guess the log, would be half as long as this [?] again and it was all hollowed out. She used that for the washing machine."