history of soy yogurt, soy acidophilus milk and other ... - SoyInfo Center

named The Home Sanitarium... Their daughter Lucile was
born here in St. Peter in 1908 and their son, Eden, in 1910.
“Next the Kloss’s became interested in the selfsupporting
work being conducted in the south and visited
some of the schools in North Carolina and Tennessee. About
1911 they sold the sanitarium in Minnesota and moved to
Fountain Head, Tennessee, where their youngest daughter,
Naomi, was born in 1913. Here they bought a 250 acre farm,
built a large house and barn, and raised many kinds of fruits
and vegetables...
“A later development in good health was his creation of
a signifi cant health food manufacturing operation in Amqui,
Tennessee after receiving a call from them to take charge of
their food factory...
“Before this factory was sold to the Nashville
Agricultural Normal Institute he was shipping health foods
all over the United States and Canada. It was during this time
at this place that he originated many new health food recipes.
This establishment later became a part of what has since
become the well-known Madison College near Nashville,
Tennessee.
“Our next move was to Brooke, Virginia where [in
1921] papa established a health food factory and retail
market. Each of us children was pressed into service in one
way or another with this family enterprise. At times we
would be helping with some food experiment, or perhaps in
typing and retyping the material that later became Back to
Eden, which was many years in preparation. Jethro Kloss’s
son Eden was for many years his right hand helper. Whatever
my father did in spreading the gospel of health and natural
living, he did with all his might and trained his children in
that same pattern of living...
“One of my favorite memories as a family is the daily
worship hour when Father would gather his family of seven
about him and we would sing hymns, read Bible verses
around the circle, and pray together. He was a gentle but fi rm
family leader.
“Although a strict disciplinarian, my father was warmhearted
and affectionate–devoted to his family. When he was
away from home, we invariably received a letter from ‘papa’
every day...
“Eventually this health food factory at Brooke, Virginia
was taken over by my step-sister, Mabel and her husband.
“The Kloss’s then moved to Washington, D.C. and
carried on his work of treating the sick, lecturing on health
and a more intensive study of herbs and preparation of
his book, Back to Eden. I still have in my possession an
attractive menu... for a Demonstration Dinner he gave March
27, 1933, at the Dodge Hotel in Washington, D.C. The menu
was completely vegetarian and included ‘Sweetbreads a la
Kloss.’ The pumpkin pie and strawberry sundae were made
with soy milk...
“Back to Eden was at last published in 1939, the fruition
of much toil and sacrifi ce for many years by the entire Kloss
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 187
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family... [Jethro’s] wife Amy [Pettis] Kloss died in 1944 at
Fredericksburg, Virginia...
“In 1945 papa became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs.
Deloe Robert Hiatt on a trip to Madison, Tennessee. Together
they found a property at Coalmont, Tennessee, where the
Hiatts took over the promotion and publication of Back to
Eden... [Jethro] peacefully went to sleep in June of 1946, his
eighty-fourth year [but he was age 83], and today rests in a
little cemetery in Tennessee.”
The recollections by his son, Eden, note: “I was
born in St. Peter, Minnesota, on February 10, 1910, to
Jethro and Amy Kloss... After the move to Tennessee, my
parents developed a plant for the manufacture of a line of
vegetarian meat substitutes, cereals, crackers, and other
items, at Amqui, near Nashville. (Our business was called
the Nashville Sanitarium Food Factory.) Many of my early
memories center on that large two-story factory, where raw
materials were transformed into good-tasting, healthful food
products...
“My father was an untiring worker. He would be up
hours before the rest of the family–building fi res, starting
cracker dough, and making everything ready so that the work
could go full speed ahead when the workers arrived in the
morning... One day when Eden was burned while canning
tomatoes, Jethro rushed him to the Madison Sanitarium for
treatment. Kloss also made gluten there.
“When I was nine or ten years old, the factory was
sold to the private school at Madison and transferred to
that campus, and our family traveled in our pickup truck,
camping en route, from Tennessee to Virginia. Here, at a
town named Brooke, we found an ideal location–a plot of
ground with a building in which we could make and sell
health foods and teach people about healthful living...
“It was here at Brooke, Virginia, that Papa started to put
in uncounted hours working on the beginnings of his book,
Back to Eden.
“After some years, my oldest sister and her husband
took over the food factory, and my parents moved to Takoma
Park (on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.)...
“Papa’s travels to give lectures and food demonstrations
took him to places like Miami, Florida, and Houston, Texas.”
There are also recollections by his granddaughter,
Doris Joyce Kloss Gardiner. In about 1939-40 she used
to be with her grandparents when they visited relatives in
Falmouth, Virginia, just north of Fredericksburg. There
she helped make soymilk: “Nor was I happy to stand at the
stove stirring and stirring large kettles of soybean milk (so
the milk wouldn’t stick and be scorched)–a laborious and
time-consuming process. But Grandpa’s soybean milk was
delicious, and so were the twenty or so other soy products
that he originated and produced–including meat substitutes
and soybean bread, butter, cheese, and ice cream...
“Often Grandpa would prepare soybean ice cream to
serve at the close of his lectures or cooking demonstrations.