My mother’s family was a living history lesson for me when I was young. I would listen to Grandma, Great Aunt Helen, and all the various cousins who would show up at Aunt Helen’s little house for lunch conversation and a good old-fashioned quilting bee. She had moved in with my grandma years ago since she was alone and unmarried. So once a month they would walk across the road and return to her old house where the dining room was converted to a quilt room. They placed a big wooden frame and sat around it. The frame had quilt backing and batting already attached to it. The design patterns were intricate, created and drawn on old newspaper. The material came from fabric that they saved from all the homemade clothing they made for their families.
The women would start a round robin conversation of “Remember when…” and I would absorb all their knowledge of the past. The old iron was on the lit wood stove in the kitchen, an ironing board beside it. It was so hot it was like a sauna in there. They would later get an electric iron. My job was to help cut out and iron the patches. When the quilts were completed, they were passed out to the various families who needed one. Grandma and Aunt Helen showed me all the quilts that were stored in a trunk. These quilts had been handed down for hundreds of years. Some were worn, but others were immaculate. Today, I still have one of them. It was my bedspread for a long time, until I stored it in a sealed container.
I also remember watching them make their own medicines, some of them nasty looking concoctions. These elixirs were supposed to help cure all ills, but sometimes I thought these potions were just a way for Methodists and southern Baptists to drink alcohol.
Grandma and Great Aunt Helen boiled their clothes in a big iron pot until they got a washing machine, the crank kind. My mother’s family was the first to have electricity and all the new appliances that ensued. Her Daddy bought them a generator until he had the house rewired, and the appliances were on the screened-in back porch.
Years later, I would shake my head in wonder at the wiring that would be deemed unsafe now. They were strung on the walls that had no insulation. The outlets were filled with plugs, reminding me of the house in the movie A Christmas Story (with the exception that their house was only one floor). However, I knew they didn’t get indoor plumbing (and that is yet another story).
Grandma and Great Aunt Helen also made lye soap in those same iron cauldrons. This is what cleaned all their clothing and bodies as well. They always sang these little songs when they worked. My grandmother fancied herself as somewhat of a healer. She always had woven ropes of dried herbs and added them to soaps and her medicinal concoctions. The aunts would stir that stuff over the fire and sing or recite some type of poetry during this time.
I decided that these songs came from the old ways and were some type of incantations. They cast a spell, and they made the healing potions. They continued their traditions, bringing these songs from the old country. I think my mother would be appalled to know how much these old aunts knew. Years later, after my Great Aunt was gone, my family tore down her house and collected some of the furniture, the old jars and siding for artists and collectors.
While they were digging up those old blue mason jars outside, I scoured the inside and found an old wise woman’s words in a little diary with the word Receipts embossed in gold on the front cover. It contained recipes (receipts) and many transactions from selling their concoctions. I loved the way they wrote – spidery cursive handwriting, the ink fading to a sepia color.
I wish I had been old enough to ask the many questions I have in my brain today, about what they did with all those potions and lotions. I’d like to believe that they were true old-timey healers and helped those in need when times were tough. While I don’t have the gift of creating physical potions, I continue to write soothing and informative pieces in hopes of healing the psyche.
Today, I ask everyone to just be well and at peace. Be kind to each other and have a wonderful rest of the week!
Dru Tieben's Writing Corner 