GRANDMA'S HOME REMEDIES - (with added comments)

Hi All,

I ran across a poem in The Transcript written by Lawrence Earle, which is called “Grandma’s Great Spring Cure.”

Now this may not have any meaning to some of you as humor can be related to personal experiences, which you may not of had with this subject.

Although it is not as common now as it used to be in earlier days, it appears that Grandpa always passed away before Grandma and Grandma either moved from place to place staying a while with each of her children, or selecting one to stay with constantly. Interestingly enough, in most cases, she would stay at the home of a son, rather than the home of a daughter.

Now there are a couple of things in particular that struck home with me and that is that I had grandmothers that had their own home remedies that could be rated from absolutely horrible to tolerable.

Starting with the absolutely horrible were of course:
Castor Oil
Sulphur & Molasses
Cod Liver Oil (Mr. Hardy, a former Raleigh Salesman From Fairfax saved the day with Cod Liver Oil pills, which weren’t bad at all to take)
Water, Ginger & God knows what
Iodine (really burned on a sore)

Now the tolerable ones were:
Slapping a piece of Salt Pork on an infected sore
The Old Mustard Plaster
Mercurochrome (Nice color, but not sure what it did)
Marti Sterin added: This was put on cuts. It didn't sting the way iodine did.
Bag Balm was very good for chapped hands
Marti Sterin added: My mother uses this for EVERYTHING! She even put it on the window so that it will open and close easier. It also works on calloused feet.

Now of course if you had the chills, or just didn’t feel good:
There was the “hot sling”, not sure what was in it as Grandma kept the secret ingredients in her bedroom, but once you took it, you slept like a baby

Now also to get the full effects of the Castor Oil, the outhouse and the Castor Oil definitely go together.

Now Castor Oil was used for other purposes. When our oldest daughter was born in late July, she was overdue by a few weeks. The weather was hot and Maryann being overdue did not go well together, so it was suggested to her that she take Castor Oil to induce labor. I guess I would have to say this only made matters worse and did not induce labor.

I am sure some of you have some additional “Grandma Remedies”, so if you want to send them to me, I will collect them and share them with the members of the Fairfax News Group. If you don’t mind my using your name, let me know, otherwise I will leave you anonymous.

color=red]Rev. Elizabeth of the United Church added a few new ones:
A few days ago Norma Bushey and Eleanor Shepard at The Bay Church (they are Langs by birth) were telling me how their mother used skunk oil as a healing remedy. They claim it didn't smell!!

An old parishioner in Richford, Leonard McAllister, told me that cedar oil (which he used to get somewhere near Greensboro) was a wonderful curative for an aching back.[/color]

Bob Bessette renewed some old memories, although he had some new ones I had never heard of:[

Oh, my...memories, and not good ones!!!
Of course my grandmother lived with us from the time I was born.... and I adored the dear lady, and still miss her terribly...but...

So.... how about treating a bellyache with a dose of Milk of Magnesia (mint flavored in orange juice no less) for the day followed by an Ivory Soap enema at night..... I had perfect school attendance after the first treatment....

And of course there was always Sal Hepatica and Fletcher's Castoria for when you got "blocked up".....

I do remember onions, butter and honey cooked together and kept on top of the warming tray of the wood stove for coughs...

Plantains (from my mother's family) were applied to festering wounds to "draw the poison" and worked very well.....

I remember I got ringworm once and that was treated by getting the old woodshed axe, heating it on the wood stove and applying some lard to the axe head, and my father then scraping the axe head with the lard to make a paste that was very dark and thick. This was then applied to the site and covered with a piece of white cloth and taped down. I only remember one treatment and it was gone. I think that it worked (from my medical knowledge now) by preventing air from getting to the organisms that cause ringworm and suffocated them...

I do remember hot slings (mine were honey, lemon, a large quantity of whiskey and hot water), which always made me shiver to drink them but I remember sleeping very well as I "sweat it out", mustard plasters, onion poultices, and cigarette smoke in my aching ear and putting an aspirin into a toothache. I also found out that St. Joseph's orange flavored baby aspirin makes the pain worse!

With the above information in mind, if you click on the link below, you can read Lawrence Earle’s poem about Grandma’s Great Spring Cure:

http://www.vtgrandpa.com/newsclips/grandma.html

Have a great day,
Henry