Of all the hats my mother wore, the "doctor hat" suited her best. As a young child she always said she wanted to doctor sick folks when she grew up. She received very little formal education but had lots of experience in caring for three little sisters when their mother died. Moma was ten years old and the baby sister was thirteen months old. Moma also had to cook, clean, and do the laundry.
When Moma was almost eighteen, she and my dad eloped. The year was 1928 and people did not go often to the Dr. The two main reasons were lack of money and no transportation. Every community usually had an older lady who seemed to have lots of knowledge on home remedies for sick folks and sick or injured animals. Well, it wasn't long before the word spread of this eighteen year old newly wed who was something to behold at "doctoring " people and animals. I think Daddy helped spread the word when she sat up all night with his beloved squirrel dog and saved its life. Someone had poisoned the dog.
The dog had been fed strychnine and Moma saved her by pouring raw eggs down her. The dog lived twelve more years. Later, her pair of geese ate some poison which had been put out for the crows. Moma saved them by forcing melted lard down their throats.
Daddy knew he had a jewel and was very proud of her many talents. He often bragged to folks; and the patients came!
Moma's younger sister was with her when she (Aunt Fannie) went into labor. My dad and uncle had gone to look for jobs. We lived in the river bottom and the nearest neighbor was three miles away. Moma delivered her sister's baby and apparently did a fine job. She now had the title of "Granny Woman."
In those days Dr. McCreight made "home deliveries" but often did not have a nurse to assist him. Moma lost count of how many babies she assisted into the world, under the guidance of Dr. McCreight. He said many times, what a wonderful help she was and what a fine nurse she would have made.
Her most famous OB case was December 12, l935. Moma went into labor with my younger brother, Jack. Daddy left, running to Old Salem, which was four miles away, to get help. They finally got Dr. McCreight and my aunt. When they all rushed in , it was a little late. Brother Jack weighed in at ten pounds and my oldest brother, Sam, held the kerosene lamp while Moma delivered her baby and cut and tied the cord.
When families realized a loved one was dying, they would come for Moma to sit with the patient. Sometimes it would take several hours for the last breath and then , often, the family would ask Moma to bathe and dress the corpse.
There were always plenty of snakes around and Moma treated many snake bites. She would suck the poison out, slit the bite with a sharp knife, and pour it full of kerosene or turpentine. She then, elavated the injured leg or arm.
Each spring Moma would make Jerusalem Oak candy and have us eat it. This was to rid us of any sort of worms we might have. Sassafras tea was given to us for whatever ailed us. Moma's Lye soap was good to stop chigger (red bug) bites from itching. It was also excellent as a dandruff shampoo.
It was not uncommon for every child in our school to have scabies (7-year itch). She mixed sulphur with lard and smeared us with the smelly mixture to cure it. We smelled to high heaven but so did all the other kids.
Skim the top cream from the cow's milk and rup it on poison oak or poison ivy rash and it brought relief. Her medicine for flux was to beat up pieces of chard wood, (pine knots from the fire place) tied up in a rag. When it was a fine powder, Mom mixed the charcoal with a spoon ful of warm castor oil and this would cure the flux. Grey flux claimed many young lives in those days.
Moma was a firm believer in honey for medicine. She preferred the wild kind she and Daddy obtained by cutting down a bee tree and fighting the bees for their honey. Her cough medicine was pine tar and honey. Moonshine whiskey, honey, and yellow root was good for a stomach medicine. Flaxseed and honey was good for the whooping cough. Sage, honey, and vinegar was given for sore throats. Honey and alum was given for hoarseness. Honey was applied to burns, used to help one sleep, and to cool fevers. When you took the croup; or a chest cold, Moma rubbed your chest with melted sheep tallow and kerosene or turpentine; whichever she had handy. Then she put a wool rag over your chest, after getting it real hot by the fire. She would get a spoon ful of sugar and drop three drops of turpentine on it and make you swallow it for a sore throat.
I never had an earache as a child but one of my younger sisters did. Moma instructed one of the boys to find a fallen pine tree and pull the dead bark away and search for a Bessy Bug. The larva was called a sawyer and made excellent fish bait. When they emerged into a large shiny, black beetle, we caught them, harnessed them with twine string, and they became our logging horses. What fun! Anyway, when this beetle was brought to Moma, she broke it in half, and there was a single drop of blood and this was dropped into the baby's ear. It looked like brown juice to me but the baby did stop crying and promptly fell asleep.
A wasp or bee sting was treated with a plaster of grew chimney mud or baking soda. Sometimes, it might be smeared with Daddy's cottonbole chewing tobacco. One item Moma never wanted to be without was powdered alum. This was sprinkled on a wound to stop bleeding.
My baby sister often broke out with huge boils on her legs. A trip to the Dr. meant lancing the boil. Moma took a hatchet, chopped some of the outer bark from a red oak tree. Under this, she chopped several small pieces of the softer red inner bark and simmered it on the stove with a small amound of water for a time. When it cooked down to a sticky paste, she plastered this red oak ooze on the boil, then covered it with a clean rag. The paste had a powerful drawing effect. The next morning when she removed the bandage, the core was completely out; the swellingwas gone, and the child was free of
pain.
Once, a friend of Daddy"s was hog hunting in the "Burn Out" when his best hog dog got too close to one of the pineywoods rooters. This old boar ripped the dog's belly wide open with his long tusks. Her entrails were hanging out when her owner came riding up with the old dog across the front of his saddle. He begged Moma to help so Mama used hair from our old mule's tail and a big long needle and sewed the dog's belly up. She was back in the woods with her owner within a few weeks.
Now, a word about warts! I saw a twelve year old girl with fifty-seven warts on her feet, legs, hands, and arms. Mama had her count them and she took a long wool string (yarn) and told her to tie that many knots in the string. She was then instructed to go home and tell no one. Mama buried the string at the root of a wild blackberry vine deep in the woods. I learned that part years later. Two weeks later, the girl saw us walking down the lane and she ran toward Mama, crying and laughing at the same time, hugging Mama and thanking her. She did not have a wart left. Now, don't ask me how! I just know what I saw. Well, Mama raised all eight of us with very little help from doctors. The oldest one will be seventy-four in January and the youngest turned fifty-two in August. Looking back, I am thankful she knew how to make do when she did not have much to do with! Oh, Mama will turn ninety-two December twenty-sixth.