Transcript

Location: 1218 Charles St.

Howard Fredricks (interviewer): You mean when your father died, your mother—

Herman Tietz: My father died—the day before he died he called me in and he says, “Herman,” he says, “you got my name.” He says, “See that Ma’s got her heavy underwear on and see that she’s got her pig,” ‘cause she always want a pig, “always have a quarter of beef.” And Ma made sausage and she’d smoke the hams and, uh, she used everything but the squeal of the pig. And, uh, I could see that she had the bologna and everything else, you know, she’d make, and she’d have it strung out in, uh, the living room there. We couldn’t go in there ‘cause, uh, she’d have that there, you know.

Fredricks: It would be in the living room?

Tietz: She’d have it in the living room until she got it all ready. Then she could put it away. Yeah, that was, uh…

So I carried a 125 pound pig, and I got from Marking’s, uh, on Logan Street there. And I bought it from old man Barr, he was a farmer up there. I bought it for four cents a pound—125 pounds, which was just to, uh, five dollars. I put that 125 pounds on my back and I carried it down two blocks and a half. *Laughter* I was tickled to death, you know, that I could do that. 

Fredricks: And then your mother would…?

Tietz: She’d fix it—she made the headcheese and she made everything! I said, she just used everything from the pig but the squeal, I believe! *Laughter*

Fredricks: Now did you have a job to do there too, in the preparation of this?

Tietz: Oh, we always had to—we always had to, you know—if she was smoking the ham, you know, we always had to get the hickory wood, we got hickory wood, you know! And we had to keep that just so. 

Fredricks: And the smoke house was out in the back?

Tietz: Out in the back, yeah. We had it in the yard.

Fredricks: Do you remember how long it took?

Tietz: Quite a while! I don’t know how many days it would be in there. It would be in there a week, or, what—I couldn’t tell you exactly.

Fredricks: And your mother always went out to inspect it everyday?

Tietz: She’d inspect it, you know, you betchya. And everything had to be just so. She was as frugal as could be, I’ll tell ya. I don’t know how in the world she ever did it!