FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
LYE SOAP
INTERVIEW WITH: Doris Riede/
DATE: August 6 , 1982
PLACE : Oral Histor y o ff ice , ITC
INTERVIEWER: Esther MacMillan
M: You are from the Samuelt Ranch
\Y
R: Sam~.t.f Farm
M: I n Mesquite, Texas·
R: Which is a part of the Dallas Parks and Recreation Depart-ment.
M: Oh , it is? Your s i gn is s pe lled Samuel! and on the program
i t says Samuels. Which is right?
R: Samue 11.
M: And you do this up there a ll the time?
R: Yes mam . The land original l y belonged to a well known
doct or in thepa llas, Ft . Wort h area . He donated something like
a 1 , 000 acres to the Dal las Parks Department as park l and.
And this particular piece he wanted to see deve loped i nto a
farm. So that's what we're trying to do now . Develop this
340 acres into a turn of the century f arm where people of all
ages can come and learn t o do those skills . Take part i n them
first hand or watch them being done. What it would take to
maintain for a family.
M:I went to one like that in Ohio. wonderfu l ~Old farm
buildings. Are there farm buildings?
R: There are farm bui l dings there and we ' re building
Riede-l 2 .
R: more period buildings. Ke are not into the re construction°~
anti9-ue buildings, but we are going to use board and batten/
the kind of structure that was used.
M: It's open to the public?
R: Right.
M: All year round?
R: All year round, 7 days a week.
M: Tell me how did you get started making lye soap?
R: I was reared up in a family. I like to say the adults in my
family were very old and they still lived the old life. And
as a result, I didn't like to live in the city; I would escape
every opportunity that I got to go the the uncles, the grand­parents,
or whatever , so I could be out in the country. Because
they still lived that life style, I kind of grew up with it.
M: You liked it, even when you were a child.
R: Yes. And I still do. I feel out of step with today's world
because I'm more comfortable with ..•
M: Are you really? That's one of the r easons I'm trying to
get people like you on tape because so much of this is just
vanishing.I want a record of it. Lye soap 3oes way back;
we've all heard about it. The "old adults" in your family
made lye soap, I t ake it.
R: Yes. In the fall and spring, when they slaughtered their
stock, they did everything they would have to do with the fat.
They made their fat for the base f or their salves; for their
dobbin to put on their harnesses; for the f at they used to
cook with and the fat that they used to store their cured
meats in. l11 of that was done in the spring. And then they
3 •
Ried~l
R: made soap with whatever was left.
M: That was the l ast use o f the fat?
R: Uh huh .
M: You used a word I'm not familiar with .. dobbin? How do you
spell that .
R: D-o- b - b - i - n .
M: For t he harnesses? Didn ' t they used to cal l horses Dobbin?
''Old Dobb i~'?
R:Yeah. It was a nick name.
M: Did it come from the r e?
R: I don ' t know. I don ' t have any idea . But this is a fat and
oil base t hat they mi xed together and t hen the y r ub it into
the i r harness . If it we r e a natural colored harness , t hey
didn ' t add any dyes to it; if it were a black harness , they
put stove blacki ng in it.
M: Are you t alking about hog fa t , mostly?
R: No , you can have a combination of either .
M: That pure lard they rende r ed out tha t they used for
cooki ng . . that was good stuff.
I n making the lye soap now. When they slaughtered, it
was u s ually in the fall wasn ' t i t , when the weather was
cooler?
R: Right .
M: Did they make lots and l ots of soap t o last all through
the winter? Was it a l ong deal ?
R: 6 pQ_ynds . . • it doesn 't take very much fat to make a bunch
of lye soap. What took them so long in making it was that all
winter long , while they were burning their fire p l aces , they
Riedl!."" 4.
R: had to save the hard wood ash . So that they would have their
alkaline solution. And they leached their alkaline solution
from wood ash with water.And t hey 'd keep adding this water and
have this big container of liquid. They poured about 5 gal-lons
of water through it and then they took that 5 gallons of
wate~nd poured it back through it until this leached out liquid ~~t
was strong enough f or the alkaline solution.
M: In other words, what we call lye .
R: yes.
M: When you say "running the water through it" what was the
ash in?
R: A hopper.
M: A hopper? A strainer sort of thing?
R: Usually V shaped with a hole i n one end of it and
o ne end was higher than the other so that it kind of strained
out into this container that they:~~tting on the ground. And
the container was the same size as the quantity of water that
they poured through it.
So when that was filled, they took that container and
poured it back through and set the container back again so
that it woul d gai n strength.
M: The first run through wasn't strong enough.
R: Right.
M: How did they de t ermine when it was strong enough, I wonder?
R: There' s a lot of wayS . Some people say if i ·t wi 11 float a
raw egg it's strong enough. It eats the feat hers off a f eather
it's s trong enough. Either of those I haven't tried but de t-e
rmine the way my grandparents did: if it had the look of
5 .
Ried.·J_
R: very , ve ry s t rong coffee or t ea , t hen i t was strong
enough .
M: Brown !
R: It gets b rown . Ver y dar k .
M: I s that why t he soap is a l ways a yel lowi sh- brown color?
R: Right. A lot o f people d idn' t e ven leach their ash . They
j ust saved some of it up a nd put i t i n a bag and put it in
t he boil i ng water with t he f at . That' s what make some of it
' --../
l ook ashy that' s been around in mus uems a long time ; it looks
ashy .
M: But the be sk way is to l each i t?
R: If you want a good soap .
M: And they used any kind of fat . I always thought it was
jus t hog fat.
R: You can use pork , beef , game fat like deer o r . . That ' s a
s tronger soap. Not stronger i n tha t it ' s harsh but s t rong in
its odor .
M: Was that soap used fo r everything or just for laundry?
R: The processed soap , the boi l ed method , was used for every
t h i ng . But there ' s a col ~ me t hod whereby you just me l t the
fat, prepare your l ye solut ion , and pour the two toget her
when they ' re comparative l y the same temper atures and s tir
' em until it sets up . And that is called cold soap and it ' s
very , very har sh . And t hat ' s what t hey scrub their barn
f loors with. That' s what they use fo r disinfectant .
M: That strong?
R: Uh huh.
Ried , r''~
R: Really raw. It will turn you pink. (laughter)
M: I was up there when you were starting your fire. You had
an iron kettle and you had ground fat in there. What kind of
fat was that?
R: It 1 s beef tallow.
M: How long do you cook that over the fire?
R: It takes about 3 hours . There's hardly any way you can cut
the time. Itfakes that lon~. It's like, in comparison to, a
large batch of pudding . You know how delicately you have to
treat it. Have to keep stirring it so it doesn•t separate.
6.
And so that it is smooth. If you have a slotted spoon, that
makes it better because it kinds of s trains it out and whips it
to make it nice and smooth like.
You know you have to treat soap like you do pudding: you
c an•t get it too hot so that it will s eparate ; if you get it
too cold, it separates . io it 1 s difficult in August t o make
good because the temperatures outside are hotte r than t he
t emperatures in your pot should be . So you can•t keep that
t emper a ture the right degr ee so it doesn • t scorch or sep­arate
. Now when it s e parates , you haven't lost anything.It
just means you •re going to have to go back and start over.
So what you do is, you let it cool down and you bui l d your
fi r e up again .. pour some wat e r in i t and you can recla im it.
There •s hardly anyway you can spoil your soap except to
burn it up.
M: That ground-up sue t I saw in the pot when you were get­ting
r eady , did you put water in there or was that j us t plain
fat ?
R: It was just fat. I don ' t have t he capabi l ity here at the
7 .
Ried. " t
R: Fair of washing the pot. And if you don't wash your pot
out, you ' re going to have a little residue of soap from the
batch before . And that will make it that puffy white look.
But if I had the pot clean and the fat in there clean then
it would be clear, like it would be in your frying pan .
M: You've got the fire started ; you've got it in the big iron
pot ; you ' ve got this ground fat.And you say it takes a l ong
time to melt it.
R: YEs.
M: Do you have to keep at it a ll the time?
R: Yes.
M: Watching it, sti rring it, all the time?
~~ R: Yes. Just~you would pudd ing .
M: At what point do you put the lye in?
R: After it is completely me lted.
M: Still on the fire?
R: Yes. But you have to prepare that l ye so lution. I use
commercial l y~now because I can no longer get e nough hard
wood to make hard wood ash from to get the lye from. So I use
commercial lye.
So prior to the fat bei ng ready, becoming liquid , I have
to prepare the lye . And that comme r cial lye has to be put into
a pitcher and water poured in it t o liquify it . And t hen
when both pots .. this water adding it to the lye granules will
make it very hot b~you have to let that cool down . to
accomodate your liquid fat . They have to be comparable. Other-wise
i f you pour the lye into it, it 's going to boi l over
R1. ed .. ~,. --f·)-
R: just like a witch ' s pot. It will j ust come bubbling
right out , spill over the side of the pot and put out the
fire and you ' ll have a mes s.~aughter)
So you to go very slowly.
8 .
M:I suppose you have a certain proportion, don't you? So much
lye to so much water to so much fat?
R: ~o l can of lye
1
you add 2~ p i nts of water. Then you add
2 pints of water 3 times to the combination of the liquids ..
the lye and the fat.
M: You do !
R:You have your fat. Then you add your lye solution . You
let that come to a boil , not a rapid boi l .. you dortt want it
to boi l real heavy . . barely flopping over .. going ba-loop ,
ba-loop •. and then you add your two more pints of water.
That will cool it down . Then you need to bring it back to
that little slow boil. And then you add 2 more pints of wat er.
That will cool i t down . And then you let it come back to the
boil and add your l as t 2. From then on, you stir it until it
begins to thicken up like pudding. It will get real thick and
f lake off of your paddl e, your spoon, whatever you're stirring
it with .. like jelly. You know how they do off the sp~on when
you're cooking it? Well that's the way it wil l do.
I t will get real thick and heavy and the bubb l es on the
top of it will look like it ' s wanting to lather, it ' s ready .
Then you take 1· t o ff an d pour 1· t up 1· n t o mus 1 1· n\ \'<t'reoa ys.
1\
The
muslin needs to be wet so that will help cure it and set it.
~o you wet your muslin and you line your wooden tray with it
and then you pour it up in the tray. Let i t sit over night
Ried.·:- f)_
R: and then you cut it into bars.
And you store it in a box with a lid. Leave the center
part of your container void of any soap. Vacant. And in
9.
that center, you can put rose petals, pine needles, bay leaf,
whatever you want. Put the lid on it and put it away where it
will stay cool; not get frozen or get too hot. Then it
will absorb t hat fragrance for the lifetime of the soap.
M: Really? Take s the bad smell away.
R: But it takes a lot. It will take like a quart of what­ever
you're going t o put in there. Rose petals, pine
needles, it will take a full quart.
M: This is in the c enter of the container?
R: Put it in the re loose. That's after you cut it into bars.
When you're going to store it to age it ..
M:And it really works .
Do you cut the bars any shape you want to? 6b you have to
do that while the soap is still a little soft?
R: Yeah. It will be comparatively soft for about 5 or 6
months before it gets real hard. But good soap is like cheese,
the longer you let i t age1 the better it is.
M: Is it?
R:Next year then and you've got soap left, and maybe it has
turned a little rancid because you couldn't keep it at the
temperature that it should be kept for storage, well, then you
fix up your liquid fat
END OF TAPE I, Side 1, 15 minutes
Riedte.."-
10.
TAPE I, Side 2
R:You can 't l os~ the soap . Next year when you start to make
another batch, another year ' s supply,you just add whatever
you have left over from this year into that batch of soap . But
do i t in the first stage so tha t it wil l melt down .
M: With the fat?
R: With the new mi~ture of lye and fat. Put it in at the
first stage. Then it will melt down and the additional water
that you add to it then will cleanse that old soap, And then
you just have a new batch of soap .
M:One thing that keeps me bothering me . I have ~icture in my
mind o f that ground suet that I looked at in your pot .
R: I grind it because it breaks down faster here .
M: When it's melted, aren ' t there any litt l e p i eces , any little
R: Well , yes , there probably will be but your first addition of \y~
is so strong that it's going to dissolve it .
M: Oh , it i s .
R: It wil l c l ear all of that up.
That's the reason you don ' t add any additional water
until that had come to another boil.
M: Can that soap ever be made mild enough so you could use it
on your face?
R: It is. When it ' s finished . Yes mam. I use it every day.
I t each children how to make it and if there were anythi ng
wrong with it, I'd be sued.
M:You use it on your face?
R: Yes mam .
Riedc!J 11.
R: On my pets and f or everything .
M: YOu've got beautiful skin . That's the best proof .
R: I have people who come to me and want it for shampoo .
M: You use it for your hair?
R: Yes mam.
M: What f lavor do you use?
R: I store mine with rose petals. I'm fond of that.
M: And the petals are strong enough to give it a lasting odor?
R:UH Huh.
M: I can see how rosem~y or bay leaf would ... You must have a
pile of roses in there.
R: Yeah . Takes a lot.
M: Could you use carnation, which is my favorite?
R: I don't see why not. I haven't tried it but I don ' t see
the r e would be any d iffe r ence between rose and carnation.
M: The housewife making this lye soap in the fall to go all
the way through the winter, could have different kinds. She
could have some cut out for l aundry ; she could have some for
washing hands; and ...
R: And diffe r ent flavors by storing it in separate cont-ainers.
6# of fat and 2 ~ pin~ts of lye solution mixed up
wi l ~render her 18# o f soap, which is a year ' s supply for a
family of 4 for under $4.00.And it isn't made any different
today. They add things to it. Or t hey make a glycerine soap 1
castile soap)but the basis for soap is still the same.
M: Has there ever been any kind of emphasis on the water
like using rain water only instead of well water?
R:I have used both. The only thing that I see different in
fl
Riec. ~· _..
12.
the two is that with rain water you get a little more suds.
There isn't a whole lot of sudsing with natural soap.You
can add things if you ... but suds doesn't do anything, really.
We're just all psyched into that. But you can make it suds
more by putting borax in it; you can add glycerine to it.
But I don't advocate those things because I like the natural·
M: Yo~re making something basic and why not l eave it that
way?
R: I grewup with the smell and the fondest memories I have of
my grandmother's is her cleansing everything with lye soap.
And her tea cakes. I wouldn't trade that for a million bucks.
It's some thing you could never buy, from my childhood.
M: What do you mean , h e r t ea cakes?
R: She made old german t ea cakes. And they were huge things.
The were like saucers. Real soft. They were cakes . They
really weren't cookies. She made ' em by the dish pans full.
When I was at her house and she was maki ng soap and she ' d make ..
you know in the old days they had th~ese big tins that were
like 5 gallon t ins with lids on ' em? She'd make those tins
full of tea cakes f or the hired hands and family. And so when
she was making soap, she would let me stir the kettle.
She'd always holler out the back door because she had a
wood cook stove , lived in a dog-run house, and s h e 'd say
11Boris, you're not letting my soap scorch, are you? 11
That was my job to keep the soap from scorching. While she
was making the t ea cakes out of the f r esh lard from killing
the pig. She d i d a ll this at one time. All at slaughteri ng
time.
Riedd.
M: My , they worked so hard. And they canned, had to be done
that fim~of year, preserving and jelly-making and all that
stuff.
R: Head cheese ; pickle t he pigs feet.
M: There ' s something nice about it; kind of sweet .
R: I really enjoyed it and I miss it.
13.
M: Aren't you lucky to have that job with the Parks
Department. You can do t his and inform other people. And
now I've got you down here on tape and this will be a record
in o~ files f or lye soap .
Is there anything e lse I haven't asked you? That I 've
forgotten to say?
R: I don 't use colors in it for the same reason that these
are the things that are added to soaps of today that break
you out. The lye soap has no ill effects that I know of.
There ' s nothing in it that would cause an allergy.People use
it who can 't use other types of soap .
M: I s it possible to buy lye soap anywhere?
R: No.
M: Do you sell it out there in the Park?
R: No , we give it away to the children or the people who
come and take the c l asses. We don ' t sell anything . It's
a city entity and and they don 't advocate our selling to
the peopl~who pay our salary. Which is l· fair.
M: I think that's wonderful .
R: We make it two or three times a month for the children·
The children make it and t hey get to take it home .
M: You don 't do this every day?
R1. .e d ;J.,•·.
R: No. Two or three times a month.
M: So you 're not there a ll the time.
14.
R: Yes, I 'm there all the time but doing other things. We tan
hides, shear sheep , spin and weave , quilt ,milk the c ow and
make cheese and butter.
M: Do you. Aren't you l ucky?
R: I love it.
M: What a job!
R: It's fascinating. We have an Indian unit and they l earn
how to tan hides and smoke t he hides so that~hey can make
teepees the way the Indians did it. We don't make a big live-in
type like you have here but we do little ones with the
k i ds . We 'll give ' em a piece of hide that will make them a
teepee.
M: I bet they love it .
R: It 's a lot of fun.
M:I 'm so glad you got that job. You're sweet. Have I forgotten
a nything?
R:I t hink that's it.
M: What do you think o f the Folklife Festival. It's a
~~nde rful learning experience?
R: I do . For everybody . NOt just the people who come but also
the participants. I a l ways try to allow mysel f enough time so
l I can go around to other places and see what theyre doing . I
can learn from them. The tatting , the basketry, I can take
something back to t each my children. I brought a young lady
withme .. I t ry to each year . . this year I brought one from
Riea.J.
R : Dallas who has worked with me, this summer. ~ o she's been
c,-. <0" "' ~'y.e. ~0'''"
over learning basketryAwho have the baskets so she can go
back and teach i t to the children. We try to do this.
We ' ve learned how to make adobe bricks.
M: Where is the adobe man?
R: He's up behind the log cabin.
We did this about 4 years ago , about how to make our" " brick.
M: It is a l earning experience ; it 's good for the k ids.
As I walk around, I watch the children's faces; i t' s
wonderful .
15.
R: We learned how to make adobe brick so we could make an Indian
beehive oven . we went back to the farm in Austin, the fi rst
one that we started, a nd built an Indian beehive oven.
M: In Austin?
R: I started there . My husband and I developing a pioneer
farm there . We did that for 7 years. Then Dallas asked us to
come up and start theirs.
M: So you and your husband both work at it?
Great. What do people ask you the most? About the lye
soap?
I
R: Weve got two different types of questions. From the
seniors, it's "my goodness, I used to do that. I can remember
stirri ng the pot; cant remembe r the process. And what in
the world are you doing that f or when you can buy it across
the counter? " And the n we ' ve got those people who consider
themselve the re- born. They want to go back to the way things
16.
Riec:lR_ .~
R: were. And they are very interested. They stay and stay
and they'll say,"When are you doing the next batch?" And they're
back. They go through every step of it,
M: Are the se the young people?
R: I would say 30's and younger.
M: I've noticed that,too . They're making bread .
R: I think it's great.
M: And if this encourages them, that 's great.
R: We had a gentleman come to a dernonstra~on I was doing
not here but a nother nature center and he stayed the
e ntire time . He took down my phone number and said,"I'rn
going to call you if I have to. I'm going horne and see if I
can make this soap. " Not until he called me back, did he tell
me what he was doing . He was part of a missionary group
and they were making up a Care packet to send to Kenya
and they didn't have any soap. So they were making lye soap
for them. He sai d ," I want you t o know where your soap is
going ."
M: And he had a success with it, apparently. When somebody
like that goes off after watching you , do they go to the
meat market and say,"Hey, I want to buy x number of pounds
of suet? "
R: Most butchers are really good about helping.Unfortunately
the time has come when so many markets are now ordering their
meat already packed. That means they 've already cut it, trim­med
it, and there's not much there. And it's hard to get.
But if they have a s laughte r house somewhere, a meat-packing
place , they can go there and get it. Most c ities do have.
Ried.i..i.
17.
M: I suppose the small communities are still doing some
butchering , aren •t they?
R: That•s c~Y salvation on the farm; we raiseour own stock.
What we do in order to serv~them to the publ ic or use them
in a program, we have to have them government inspected .
So by that , we •re compelled to take it to a slaughtering
establishment. Then they save us the fat off o f our own
product. So we•ve used everything from our stock . We
save the hide , everything , and use it on the farm .
M: Are you close to Dallas? Is it very accessible?
R: It 1 s actually in Mesquite. But it is a part of the
Ballas Parks Departme nt .
M: Go you get a lot of public interest?
R: Yes. rt •s a little slow right now because it •s only
2 years o l d . In i t s infancy. we •re 18 months into a 7 year working
plan . Deve lopment p l an. Were doing real wel l; were getting
I our physica l structures up. We ve al started the programs.
We have day camp in the summer . 4 two-week sessions where
children can come every day and lea r n to do the se things.
M: Have you ever been to the Ranch Museum in Lubbock?
R: No .
END OF TAPE I, side 2, 15 mi nutes.