After my Pappy Lutz passed away in the summer of 1996, my Grammy was faced with life without her husband of 65 years.
Being a recent Penn State grad I took the opportunity to live on her farm in Bellefonte, PA. After doing some major fixing up to a little farm-hand's house on the farm I moved in full-time in February 1997.
We spent a lot of time talking and laughing. What started as a bonding experience between a granddaughter and grandmother has turned into a full-time soaping business - Lutzy's Lather. Learning to make soaps was my way gaining a common interest with Grammy and giving her something to pass on to me. Since Grammy passing last September (2001) I've committed to turning Lutzy's Lather into a fulltime business to keep her memory alive and to make her proud.
Grammy & Pappy Lutz, Summer 1995
Grammy's soapmaking
was featured in an article
in the Centre Daily Times
(State College, PA)
in January 1983.
Grammy was a shy woman, she didn't like her photo to be taken... this is why you only see her hands.
To read this article...
Click on the
reading glasses below...
FROM LYE AND LARD, Dorothy Lutz of Bellefonte has been making soap for 40 years the same way her mother and mother-in-law made it. The lard, saved from the hog butchering of the previous year, is mixed with lye and water. After the mixture hardens for two days, it's cut into bars that dry for a few weeks before they're put to a variety of household uses.
