| Fannie talks about herself
Making candles
I think so. A man by the name the name of Shlaima [Solomon] — we used to call him Reb Shlaima because he was on old man already, but when he —I understand when he was brought to the house, he was a very young man. Maybe a young boy. I don't know.
Anyway, so that's why I say I know how to make candles. They'd have those sticks. Those beautiful sticks. You’d buy them. They were polished. All the same size. And he had a sort of little thing that would cut it, you know. He’d grow it by hand...so big, and then he'd cut it so that...and he'd put them on sticks. Beautiful sticks. They were all varnished and those he would dip in the tallow. They had...well, you know, a box of water underneath. The tallow was on top. He wasn't going to have a deep one with tallow, so he used to take three or four of them and, you know, dip them in. Put them across two, you know, two sticks or whatever they were to hold them. And by the time they got to the second time they were all drying and he’d dip them again. That's why I say I know how to make candles out of tallow.
I don't know if he was redheaded, but he had a red beard, so I'd always go out to watch him. It was interesting. He'd make the candle and melt the tallow and everything. The reason he [the grandfather] was such an educated...he was a rabbi, so he didn't want to live on wages, so because of that he made a store.
Q. This is Reb Shlaima?
A. No, this is my grandfather. Reb Shlaima was the one that made the candles. No, he made the candles. Wasn't an assistant.
Rachel Leah, she was my grandmother's sister, and she sold the yeast. My grandfather gave her the yeast. The candles he kept for himself, and there was a third something. I don't know what he did with that. I think he gave it away too. The candles were enough because the man made them, and they were sold in the store. The store was, you know...they didn't have anything [?] to sell in the store. The candles, and they sold paint, dry paint to make...the peasants used to come by and dye their linens.
I don't know why I know all of this. I wasn't told. But I happened to know, you know, what they did with it.
Q. What else did they sell in the store?
A. Well, the candles...they sold oil, good oil to bake with. And they also sold kerosine and spices and salt, lots of salt and dried fish. Oh, little things like paper for the kids to write on, you know. They used to have great big...they were about as big as this table, you know, big sheets. They'd get them and cut them up and make books out of them.
See, I know an awful lot. I mean, Bessie didn't know anything about it, and she was only 15 months younger than I. But she wasn't interested, you know. But I don't know. I wasn't interested either, but it seems like I knew what it was all about.
[Later]
What else? I actually saw one of those things that they cast the candles. They weren’t plain little tallow candles. It was tallow they used. They had a real factory there in my grandmother's house cause they melted the tallow, and they took...made whole bells [sic] of tallow and those they sent away. You know, they were low bells but wide like this. And in the winter time, it froze. They used to send it away to Warsaw and places like that. So this man, Shlaima, he used to melt it and get it ready and everything. Besides the candle, they didn't need so many candles. But he made the candles. All sizes. Big ones, little ones. And they also had forms that made candles like what you'd buy here. Large ones for funerals and things like that. And that was my grandfather's. It wasn't ours.
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