One of the last jobs of butchering was rendering the fat. Hog fat was kept separate during the butchering process and then melted in the kettle. It then re-solidified when cooled as lard. Amazingly, unless exposed to summer-like temperatures, it kept very well. We used the lard for frying, making piecrust, or some other uses if butter-churning had lagged behind.
Beef tallow was rendered the same way. Somewhere in their past, perhaps at some folk life fair, Jean and Dianna had both learned how to make candles. The cleanest tallow, that with the least blood or meat clinging to it, was melted separately for Jean, Dianna, and me to make candles. It was a hot job, but I was glad to help. It was fun and a wonderfully warm job during the winter. Finding the right material for wicks was challenging. Baler twine was plentiful, but too thick. Shoestrings were the right thickness, but who wanted to waste shoestrings on candles. We tried twisting straws or other plant stems, but they burned too quickly. We had a small ball of packaging string; you know, the kind you used to wrap packages. It was nice and round, the right thickness, burned at a decent pace, and the hot fat clung to it fairly well. However the supply was soon exhausted. We had to settle on spitting the sisal baler twine and retwisting it. We tried the same thing with plastic twine, but it burned kinda funny, so sisal was the best choice. We certainly had plenty of it, but sometime in the future, the supply would run out because of all the other uses we had for baler twine, like our braided ropes.
“One day,” Jean had said, “we’ll have to find some fibrous plant or weed that we can make wicks out of.”
“We’ll have to experiment next summer,” was my response.
After settling on the wicks, the trickiest part was getting the candles started. Poppop had handcrafted a dozen candle holders that eight wicks could be fastened to. The first dip in the hot tallow was the most difficult because the wicks didn’t have enough weight to make them go down into the fat. So we used a thin stout wire to force each of the wicks into the grease. It was a job we did as a team; more hands making it easier. Even then, when you pulled out the wicks, there was barely any coating on the infant candles. Every dip after that became easier and easier, as long as we waited long enough between dips, so the fat had solidified enough onto the wick to prevent it from melting off the wick on the next dip. That was why we also had to be careful not to get the fat too hot or we’d be melting the candles away faster than we’d be building them up. Grandpop was a big help with that aspect, carefully monitoring the heat. It was neat to have him find a way that he could contribute and for me to spend some time working with him. Plus he really seemed to enjoy it.
We probably had to dip the candles 12 to 15 times until we got the thickness we desired or the level of grease had gotten too low in the kettle to dip. Our finished candles weren’t always works of art. They smoked a little too much, smelled a little, and could have burned more slowly. Our flashlight battery supply would soon be exhausted and even the rechargeable ones would not last forever. So our candles became a valuable asset to the community during the months of fall and winter when we only had nine to ten hours of daylight. In addition, artificial lighting was preserved exclusively for use in the barn where no flames were permitted.
When we had finished dipping all the candles, all the dirtier, poorer quality fat and tallow and any grease leftover from frying (remember, we threw nothing away), was added to the remaining grease in the kettle for soap making. Most of us had never seen soap being made. Dad said Poppop used to make homemade soap when Dad was growing up and Grandmom used to help her aunt make soap for years. But that was years ago and neither of my grandparents remembered the precise formula and method. Fortunately, Wayne came to save the day, because he knew how to make soap.
“There’s a catch,” Wayne said when first approached about lending his expertise. “We need lye to make soap.”
“That figures,” lamented Harvey, “we couldn’t think of everything when we started to stockpile supplies for the collapse. I’m not sure where we even could have bought lye.”
“Could have checked the pretzel factories,” Jeremiah offered. “They use lye for some pretzel products.”
“Or a plumbing supply store,” Aaron said. “They use it for unclogging pipes.”
“Then we have some,” Dad announced.
“Where?” Joe wondered.
“In our bathroom and kitchen cabinets - Liquid Plumber, Drano. Most products made to unclog drains have sodium hydroxide in them – lye. I’m sure we brought three or four quarts from our house. Others could have too. Remember, cleaning agents, soaps and chemicals were high on the list of priorities of materials to salvage.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Jeremiah agreed. “I’m sure I had one or two bottles. We can check our inventory in the upstairs kitchen. Wouldn’t they be stored there?”
“Yes,” Harvey answered, “there might also be some up at Butch’s.”
“And when we need more,” Joe added, “we can have Titus trade some of our meat or flour or even the soap we make for more. Or we can make our own salvage run; check out what’s left behind in the stores in town or in abandoned homes.”
It was a touchy subject. Trading was one thing; others could use some of our produce including the soap we’d make. But was just going into someone else’s home or store and taking what was left behind appropriate, ethical, or moral?
“I guess there are a couple theories concerning scavenging,” Dad said. “Some would say you have to do what you have to do to survive.”
“Others say it would be stealing,” Barry interjected.
“But it’s on abandoned property,” Jeremiah countered.
“It’s just laying there, going to waste,” Bruce offered. “You know how our culture abhors resources going to waste.”
“Not to mention that our situation demands we waste nothing,” Jake added. “And I don’t mean only our little group, but all of society. We’ve wasted too much the last couple generations. That’s part of what got us into this mess.”
“Sounds ethical to me,” Harvey concluded. “Not immoral either.”
“Definitely appropriate,” Joe concluded, “besides, we’d take those resources to turn them into products that we’d eventually share with any folks that needed them. Only makes sense to me.”
All eyes turned to my grandparents and Wayne. I guess this was one of those issues where even my parents and their generation, already in their 40s and 50s, looked to the previous generation for wisdom. The question didn’t even need to be verbalized.
Grandpop spoke first. “You do what you have to do,” he said. “It would be best is we could trade for everything we need, but we might not always be able to do that.”
“Especially if you can’t find the owner,” Grandmom added.
“Choose the crew carefully,” Wayne proposed, “that would venture out on any scavenging missions. Choose men with sound judgment. Have them take trade goods with them and seek out the remaining neighbors first. They should announce who they are, what they’re looking for, and what they’re intending to do with it. Don’t take anything the neighbors might need in the future, but take what they agree to part with. Mention we have things or will be producing things that they might need someday. Use the trade goods as peace offerings. If our men feel it best to compensate the owners – leave them some money. I know the money is practically worthless and that the owners might never return to claim it, but if it brings peace, then so be it.”
“Then so be it,” several echoed.
Turned out scavenging, while important and necessary, wasn’t that big a deal. Many abandoned homes and stores were well emptied when the scavengers arrived. However, there were items that were left behind, like drain openers that were thought of as useless or worthless by their previous owners, but became useful and worthwhile in the hands of the industrious and ingenuous members of our community.
So Wayne helped us make soap. It took a lot of boiling and stirring and somehow adding the lye to the boiling fat enabled it to solidify when cooled. Later when the supply of lye ran out, we learned that wood ashes could be substituted. I don’t know why they worked and it was a more difficult and trickier process, but it gave us the same results –soap. The stuff actually worked, too. It didn’t smell that great though, so we tried adding perfume, after-shave, or cologne (some things we really had no other use for) to a couple batches to spice it up a little. That made it more pleasant to bathe or shower with, which was the homemade soap’s primary use. But soon we were using it for laundry and dishes as well, so we could save all the laundry and dish detergent we had on hand for sanitizing the milking equipment when Larry’s commercially produced cleaners would run out. Down the road, we even had to use homemade soap for that job as well. For the ensuing months it was an ongoing burden – finding homemade products to replace the ones we had been able to purchase just a few months ago.
To be continued……..Mort
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