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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 113
Washing Clothes and Making Soap. When asked about washing clothes, Bernice said: We'd boil the clothes in the wash pot. You had a stick to punch the clothes down in the water. The first thing you got when you got married was a rubbing board. You'd save the hog lard to make soap. Put the grease in the pot. Open the Red Devil lye. Cook and stir, cook and stir. Pour it out in anything you could find. It would get too thick if you left it in the pot. You could pour it out on a piece of tin. Let it cool some before you start to pour. When it is almost beyond stirring, you take it out with a dipper. You used it for washing clothes and yourself. It made the best shampoo! It would make your hair shine! Quilting and Sewing. Bernice spent many hours at Pappa Chaney's house quilting with “Momma Chaney.” She said that Momma would start on one end of the quilt and she'd start on the other [Bernice is left-handed]. Asked to describe the quilting frame, Bernice said: The frame hung from the ceiling. It had four staples in the ceiling. You put a strong screen on each end and let it hang down. Quilting frames have two sides and two ends. There would be a hole drilled down the two frames where they cross. Put a nail in it to hold them together. There were heavy strings coming down from the ceiling to each end of the quilt. You could use a sawhorse frame, but that didn't hang down and you couldn't push the quilt away from you or pull it to you like you can on one that hangs from the ceiling. We'd use coal oil lamps. I'd sew many a stitch by coal oil lamp. I had a treadle sewing machine. Back then we made bonnets, aprons, and dresses from the feed sacks. The fertilizer ones were white. We had to soak the fertilizer out, soak, pour out, and then again. The fertilizer would about eat up your hands. You'd get out all you could then boil them. The Depression Years The researcher asked Bernice Chaney if she could remember the Depression years. She counted back from the age she is now and said she was 12 years old when Roosevelt was elected, and went on to say: My brother-in-law Barney went to the CCC camp. We had to plow part of the cotton up. What was the hardest part? Working in the field. You had to have a cow. No cow, no milk. I don't know how we lived. People were so humble and good to each other. If we got through our work, we'd go help the neighbor. No matter who got through first, they'd help each other. 113 - (4146)