| Fannie talks about herself
Making candles
[Q = Len]
You asked me about the tallow, how to make the tallow. See, the peasants used to bring in... they take the fat skin off the sheep...off the cow, and they made a ball. It looked like a cabbage. That cabbage was the... We called it a factory, so they had two great big tubs built in and underneath they build a fire, and that's how they melted the tallow, see. And they poured it into a box that was standing...the box was about this wide. And as I said, they have these sticks, you know, beautiful sticks, and you dip it into the tallow. At the bottom was water. The top was...as much tallow as you needed. They needed this much for the candle, this much. So that's how he used to dip those things in. Got them out and then you start all over and do it again until the candle got as big as he wanted them to be. And he also had form...I saw in the Sunday paper where they used to have one of those things, you know, you put in the wick, and you pour in the tallow, and then when it gets cooled off, you take the tallow from the other side. You take out the candle. You know, those...just like the candles you see here only they were they were this size, and they were out of tallow. Nowadays you ... you get them from paraffin, wax. Some people liked them better because they didn't smell.
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Q. Your grandfather made candles from tallow. Go ahead.
A. The tallow was brought in by the peasants. They used to come to town to buy on Sundays, and I think Tuesdays. They used to come in to town and buy things. They used to come to church. So they used to bring their tallow. You know, if they kill a sheep, they take it. The sheep tallow was sold for more than the tallow from the other animals.
Q. Why? Was it better for candles?
A. No. It wasn't better for candles. Candle is tallow. This was good. They’d keep it separate because the druggists used to make cream out of it.
Q. Oh, I see.
A. I know everything. Isn't that funny how I know everything?
Q. Remember, you were ten years old when you left, so...
A. Yeah.
Q. So, anyway. Go ahead.
A. So the demand for making the candles...He [Shlomo] didn't want to stay when we went away.
Q. They didn’t want to what?
A. They didn't want to stay. Didn't want any bosses.
Q. I see.
A. I suppose. Anyway, he went to this country because he had two girls there...two unmarried girls...so that's that. What else?
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