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Page 36 PIONEER HARDSHIPS
The pioneer had to make his own brooms. The first
brooms were made by taking a small piece of hickory tree a little
longer than the ordinary broom handle. This piece of hickory was
usually four inches to six inches at the butt end. The broom was
made by carefully raising slivers about ten inches in length,
passing them down over the butt end, and when the broom was
completed, these slivers were tied below the butt with a strong
cord, making a round brush six or eight inches in diameter. This
broom would have been useless to sweep a carpet, but answered for a
wood floor. The balance of the stick was shaved away with a
drawknife until it was the thickness of an ordinary broom handle.
Soon the pioneer commenced the planting of broom corn and each
person made his own brooms. These brooms were much lighter than the
hickory style, but did not last so long as the one made of splints.
As the family increased, the old bake kettle ceased to
be used for baking bread, as it held but one loaf. It became
necessary to erect what was called a "Dutch" oven. There being no
brick in the community, this was built of clay blocks. The hearth
was usually flat stones secured from the fields, laid and leveled
down upon a bed of mortar, and the oven was built up over it of clay
bricks eight to ten inches square and twelve to sixteen inches long.
The interior of these ovens was about four feet square. The
providing of wood for the oven was a chore. It was usually white
pine, split into small sticks of not to exceed an inch thick and
four feet long. When baking day came, the oven was filled with the
dry pine sticks, burned out, and then the ashes were raked out, and
the bread laid on the hearth to bake. Thermometers did not exist.
The housewife could tell the temperature of the oven by placing her
hand for a moment inside to determine if she should close the mouth
of the oven or leave a small space for the hot air to escape, so her
bread did not burn. When the bread was taken out, pies and cakes
were placed in the oven, to bake in the heat left from the bread
baking. A large family would require a baking from two to three
times a week.
SOAP MAKING
The fuel at the time was hard wood, and all the hard
wood ashes from the hearth or stove were carefully saved for soap
making. Soap making occurred usually twice a year, fall and spring.
An ash hopper was constructed from boards, standing upright on a
plank with gutters cut in the plank around it to direct the lye to
the tub or other receptacle. This hopper was about three feet square
at the top and constructed of boards about four feet long, brought
to a point of six inches on the base. The hopper was constructed of
two courses of boards to keep the lye from running through the
cracks. These ashes were then lightly tamped into the hopper and
water poured on the ashes, and as the water trickled through the
ashes it leached out the potash, making a weak lye, which was
subsequently boiled until it became of the proper strength. To this
was added "soap fat", which was the
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