Soap Makin’ per Callie Melton

The following is from an article written by Callie Melton for the Standing Stone Dispatch in the early 1980’s.  I present it verbatim.

Soap making was a full day’s work and it just didn’t start on any day you up and thought about making it.  You had to look ahead and figure out the next time the moon would full… then you set the day, for if you made the soap on the waning of the moon it would all dry up to nothing.  All winter the meat scraps had been carefully saved in a big oak box in the smokehouse.  It is true that we used all of the pig but the squeal… soap making proved that. 

The night before you were going to make soap, bucket after bucket of water had to be carried from the rain barrel and poured in the ash hopper to leach out the lye.  Then, the next morning right after breakfast, the big was kettle was set up and filled with water also from the rain barrel… you had to have soft water to make good soap and leech out lye.

A fire was put under the kettle, and while the water was getting hot, the women were busy getting the meat scraps ready.  When the water was boiling, the lye was put in.  You kept adding the lye until you could swish a feather from a chicken’s wing through the water two or three times, and then when you pulled it through your fingers it would slip… slipping meant that all the feather part would slip off from the shaft.  Now that the lye water was strong enough, you began putting the meat scraps in.

You put in a handful at a time, stirring all the time with the soap stick…the soap stick was a stout stick made from a limb of a sassafras bush.  The sap from the Sassafras made your soap smell good.   When you stirred, you always stirred clock-wise, for if you didn’t stir your soap right it wouldn’t set… and a woman was judged not only by the way her young’uns acted, but also by the kind of soap she made.  You added the meat scraps a handful at a time until the lye would not eat up anymore.  Then you stirred your soap carefully and cooked it slowly until it began to get thick.  Now the fire had to be raked out from under the kettle, and the soap let cool.  When the soap was cod, you covered the kettle with wide boards to keep out the dew or rain until morning.  The next morning you cut the soap out in blocks, and put it on wide planks in the smokehouse to cure.  Good soap was hard and creamy smooth when it was cured, with not bits or pieces of uneaten meat, and it lathered up good when you washed with it… Soap you took a bath with was made from butter or lard and was whiter and finer and you always stirred it with a fresh sassafras stick. 

The Stories Online

Have you ever Googled your own name made the shocking revelation that most of us have some web-presence these days?  Publishers tell us authors we must have such a presence and we are always working to build our audience – after all if you’ve got a story to tell you want to tell a whole bunch of people don’t you?

While chatting with a friend recently some subject came up and I said, “Hey I wrote a blog about that”.  So I whip out my handy-dandy smart phone and search “Tennessee Mountain Stories” plus the subject of the moment.  What popped up was an “Interview with Beth Durham”. 

Huh?  What interview?

Well, I’m always talking about Tennessee Mountain Stories to pretty much anyone that will listen – and quite a few folks that tune me out.  And here was someone who not only listened but took notes!

You see homework can now be found on the World Wide Web and I had in fact answered some questions for my communications-major-niece.

It’s kind of fun to read through someone else’s summary of your work and I thought you good readers might enjoy this piece as well.  You can click here to see Anna Grace’s article.

Mountain Fun

Clyde Whittaker remembers some of the fun he had growing up in Monterey, Tennessee

In mid and late April when it got warm, my friend, James Way, and I started thinking of playing in a small creek about a mile away.  Every year James and I with sometime help from James’ brother Ray would move logs and rocks in place to make a crude dam.  It was not very good, but it raised the water in the hole several inches and made the hole wider.  When James and I were about 13 years old we learned to swim in that little hole.  The following year we started going to the Monterey Lake.  We usually walked almost three miles to the lake.  Soon both of us were good swimmers.  A fellow later told me that when they got to the lake if they saw two heads out in the middle of the lake they would say, “Well I see that James and Clyde are here.”

In winter James and I couldn’t afford store bought sleds.  We made our own.  The city dump was near our house about a half a mile.  We found short pieces of lumber and made a sled.  You couldn’t steer it but it would go fast downhill.

[One time} Ray Way and I were taking a long walk in the woods.  We went up a mountain and decided to go a different way back to town.  We didn’t usually use that trail.  We saw ahead of us an old man with a rifle in his arms blocking the trail.  His name was Ike Buckner, a distant cousin of mine.  He asked who I was and I said Frank Whittaker’s son.  Ike said he didn’t know Frank had a son as young as I was.  I realized he was thinking of my great uncle so I said I am Tommy Whitttaker’s grandson.  When I mentioned my grandpa a large grin came on his face and he said, “Do you want a drink?”  I was about 13 so I declined.  Ike and my great Uncle Frank made moonshine together.

There is a story about Uncle Frank Whittaker and Ike Buckner making whiskey together.  They had two barrels of mash ferment and it already had some alcohol.  Uncle Frank noticed Ike using a wheat straw taking a drop from the barrel.  He figured Ike would drink up their profit.  When they put the sprouted corn in the barrels some corn was left on the ground and rats were eating.  Frank used his pistol and shot one of the rats and put it in the barrel Ike was sipping.  Ike started sippin’ the one with the rat.  He moved to the other barrel and started sipping.  Then he went back to the barrel with the rat.  He looked at Uncle Frank and said, “Frank the one with the little rat in it is the best.”

Clyde’s School Days

[There is just a little overlap from last week’s article here, but I wanted to include all of Clyde’s school memories together.]

Clyde Whittaker attended Monterey School from 1930 - 1943.

He writes:

We moved into town near Grandma Whittaker when I was five.  I started school at six.  All twelve grades were in one building.  No running water the first year.  We had a girl and boys outdoor toilets.  There was a well with a hand pump near the back entrance.  Each class had a water bucket.  In lower grades the teacher would send two boys to fill the bucket and carry it back to the room.  Each kid had a telescoping cup that collapsed until you could put it in your pocket.  Each room had a large pot-bellied stove for heat.  The teacher would send two boys to the basement to get a scuttle of coal.  The teacher had to keep the fire going. 

In second grade the teacher got us samples to pass to the kids.  She got a small tube of Vaseline for each student.  I put a small dab of Vaseline on my hair.  I punched the cute girl in front of me to look at my hair.  She said it looked good.  So I put the rest of the tube in my hair to make it look even better.

Each class had a picnic near the end of the school term.  The usual place was the woods near where I lived.  When we finished eating I told Mary Frances I knew where there was lots of wild flowers.  When we got back to the picnic area no one was there.  When we got back to the hill and could see the school the last of our class was going in.  One of the girls yelled that Mary Frances was in the woods with Clyde.  Mary Frances yelled back, “You just wish it was you.”

In the fourth grade the teacher wanted a demonstration of a debate.  Mary Francis and I were selected.   We sat together in a corner and worked up the debate.  We enjoyed the task.  Shortly after that her father, a Methodist pastor was moved to another church.  I thought that was a terrible thing for the church to do.

In the fourth grade I sat near the front of the room.  The teacher called a boy to the front.  He had been making trouble and she was going to paddle him.  In those days a teacher was judged partially on her willingness to use the paddle when necessary.  As she paddled him I looked up and saw tears running down her face.  She was doing what was expected of her but it was hurting her more than the boy.

In the fifth grade we had an old maid, Flossie, a wonderful teacher.  When she needed to leave the room for a short time she would say, “Clyde tell the class a story.”  I would stand and tell something I had read.  One time I made up a story to tell.  She called on me maybe five times during the year.  She never called on anyone else.  [That year] I entered a speech contest which was part of a regional school competition including athletic events.  I was on the stage well into my speech when three high school boys in the back of the auditorium started laughing loudly.  I thought I did something and started thinking what it was and mixed up my speech terribly.  I didn’t realize until much later, they didn’t’ even know I was making a speech, they were joking among themselves.

I was either in fourth or fifth grade when our neighbors the Way family was going to kill and butcher a hog.  I had never watched the butchering of a hog so I decided to play hooky from school and watch it.  I thought no one would notice but my Mom saw me playing around the neighbor’s house about a hundred yards away.  When my Dad got home he cut a limb off a peach tree near the back steps and used it to give me a good whipping.  I had other whippings but I remember that one best.  I deserved the whipping and it hurt.  To my parents, school was serious business.  In those days parents who didn’t give their children proper guidance were considered neglectful.  I know now that whipping me caused my Dad more pain than it did to me.  [Someone asked me], “Didn’t you hate your Dad for that?”  I said no that I deserved everyone I got and deserved some I didn’t get.  We didn’t have much in those days, but I knew my parents always did the best they could under the circumstances that existed at the time.  I never had any doubt that my parents loved me and I loved them.

In most ways sixth grade was an uneventful period.  I have told people that from the age of twelve I bought most of my clothes – not all but most.  Mom made my shirts until I joined the Navy.  I was given a shirt, store bought, at least once maybe twice.

In the sixth grade I didn’t own a book.  In those days our students had to buy their own books.  I had a little money but I used it to buy overalls and shoes.  I would go in thirty minutes or more before class started and study using my friend’s book, which was left in their desks overnight.  At lunch I would rush two blocks home and eat a little lunch and rush back to school to study another thirty minutes before class started.  One day we had a test I don’t remember the subject.  The teacher was chewing out the class.  Everyone had done very poorly on the test except Clyde.  He went on to say Clyde don’t own a single book.  I was so embarrassed that I never told anyone until about three years ago I told [my sister] June.  I had come to realize that he didn’t mean to insult me but was complimenting me for doing well on a test under difficult circumstances.

In the Sweet By and By

Now you may be in a more modern church that has done away with paper hymnals but I like my song book in hand.  I play at the piano and my meager skills have been used from time to time in various churches from which I’ve collected a number of books.  It’s funny the difference in songs from one edition to another and I’m often saddened by missing favorites.

Well as you know this blog largely springs from research for my fiction-writing and I’m very serious about historical accuracy – which was what I was thinking about as I noticed the dates of tunes and lyrics this past Sunday.  Did it ever occur to you if you stepped back in time to your very own church 50 or 100 or even 150 years ago what they might be singing?

My pastor mentioned a song recently – which I’d sung my whole life – that was a “modern” hymn.  I thought, “Huh?”  Modern isn’t an adjective I like applied to the good ole’ hymns I know and love.  But compared to Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress which he wrote in 1529, The Old Rugged Cross is quite modern, being penned in 1913. 

If you arrived this Sunday into 1850, you would not be singing Jesus Loves Me – it would be another decade before that song is available.  Nor would you enjoy What a Friend we have in Jesus which was written in 1855.  You would be able to sing At the Cross (1707) and Amazing Grace (1779).  If you enjoy I Shall not be Moved that song was probably available in 1850, but it was an African American Spiritual, the exact date of its origin is unknown.  Since there were few desegregated congregations in 1850, there would have been lots of churches that would not have included that one on their weekly program.

Fast forward fifty years and the song book has grown.  By then How Great thou Art (1886), At Clavary (1895) and Count Your Many Blessings (1897) would have been added.

But you’ll have to wait well into the twentieth century to begin singing some of my personal favorites: I’ll Fly Away (1932), Jesus Hold My Hand (1933) and Victory in Jesus (1939).  Who ever thought of those songs as “modern”?

The stories around songs are fascinating too and we often sing them for years without knowing their history.  I guess a hymn can minister in two ways, by its lyrics and by its story.  I enjoy Mine Eyes have seen the Glory which was written in 1861 by Julia Ward Howe.  The original printing is “by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments” and includes a verse “I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel”.    The tune was originally set to “John Brown’s Body Lies a’moulding in the Grave” and eulogizes “John Brown was a hero” and “his truth still marches on”.

It is Well with my Soul was written in 1873 by Horatio Spafford following the tragic deaths of his four daughters in a shipwreck.  He had already suffered the loss of a 2 year old son and economic ruin following the Great Chicago Fire.  Still, as he traveled across the Atlantic to meet his grieving wife he was inspired to pen lines that I can barely hear without a tear springing to my eyes.  “When sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul’”.

And perhaps the most famous backstory to a hymn is Amazing Grace – all the more well known after the 2006 film.  John Newton had captained a slave ship before he came to know The Lord and he was later inspired to write a number of hymns.  Amazing Grace was picked up in America by the Second Great Awakening and has touched an untold number of souls in the past 238 years.