LYE SOAP: Learn why homemade soap was important to 
farm families in the early 1900s ... details on Passport to 
Texas.

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Bath soap today is as varied as the people who use it. But 
for Texas farm families of the early 20th century, only one 
kind of soap existed, and it was lye. 

Lye is what you get when you leech water through wood ash. You 
take lard, lye, and water. You put it in a pot and you cook it, and 
what happens is actually a long word that's called 
'soponification.' It's a chemical reaction you get when you're 
cooking this process -- and that way the lard doesn't feel so 
greasy. It takes about an hour and a half. :18

Ricky Weinheimer, farm manager at the Sauer-Beckman 
Farmstead at LBJ State Park, says families used this soap 
for everything.

It's good for poison oak, mosquito bites, chiggers, wood floors, 
Monday's wash day, and of course you can't forget Saturday 
night's bath. That soap was more an all around soap. :09

Texas farm families didn't buy their lye soap at the corner 
market; they collected ingredients for the versatile 
cleaner, and made it themselves.

Those farm families do not depend on other people to do the 
work for them like we do today- you know just going to the store 
and buying soap. That's what farm families did -- cook soap. :15

See how easy your life is when you attend a lye soap 
making demonstration Saturday from ten to three at the 
Sauer-Beckman Farm at LBJ State Park in Johnson City. 
 
That's our show for today ... with research and writing 
assistance from Loren Seeger ... For Texas Parks and 
Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti