Folklore, wives tales, and/or magic - Doctoring, When There Was No Doctor!

 Doctoring in the "old days"

    

     Good morning all! A new story I am working on has a small child who is in need of some sort of pain reliever – in the mid 1800s!  I did some research and came up with the answer I was looking for.  But in the process came across some old folklore, wives tales, and maybe what some thought was a bit of magic.  I though I would share it.  It was pretty interesting.  I hope you enjoy it!

Let’s say, Mary, a ten year old girl, wakes up one morning with a stuffy nose and a fever.  She finds mom and tells her she feels achy all over and has a headache.  Mom feels her forehead, gives her a teaspoon of cold medicine, maybe some aspirin, plugs in a humidifier to help her breathe, and puts her back to bed.  Life goes on. 

     But what would have happened if Mary’s great, great, great grandmother woke up sick with a cold and fever    According to American folklore, settlers of long ago believed there were specific methods of preventing or curing certain illnesses.  As strange as some of these theories sound, these “fixes” have been passed down from generation to generation. 

For example, it was believed that lettuce would help a person sleep.  Chicken fat was thought to be a sure cure for earaches and reduced the possibility of deafness.  Many different roots, leaves, and certain kinds of bark from the forest were boiled into teas for different ailments.  Sassafras, catnip, horehound and pennyroyal were all brewed into teas and used to treat coughs and colds. Today, we are told pennyroyal is traditionally used as a poison.  Even the smallest amounts can be toxic.  White and black willow leaves and bark were brewed into a tea to break up a fever.  This makes sense as willow is abundant with salicylic acid – aspirin.  The pitch from the white pine healed wounds and sores.  Cooked pine needles were used for toothaches.

     Other theories passed down become more and more bizarre.  If you had a wart, you would take a kernel of corn and rub it on the wart.  You would then take the kernel and wrap it up in a pretty package and place it in the fork of two roads.  This has to be done at night and there must be a full moon.  The wart will be gone within two weeks.  Unfortunately, the one who finds the package, opens it and touches the kernel will get the wart.

     What happens if you wake with a cold or sore throat?  Long ago, a big red onion would be tied to the bedpost, keeping the person in that bed safe from colds.  Some thought a dirty sock worn around the neck would cure the sore throat.  On the off chance you do get that cold, even with the protection of the red onion, here is what you could look forward to for the congestion.  Dry mustard would be mixed with water and some flour to make a paste. A cloth would be put on your chest or back and this mustard plaster would be put on the cloth.  The smell was

very unpleasant and if it stayed on too long your skin might blister.

     Some pioneers thought if moonlight shines on your face while you are sleeping, you could go crazy. If a person got a nosebleed all they needed to do was press an iron key to the back of the neck.  And last, but not least, if you got a toothache on the left side of your jaw, you would simply tie a string around the little toe of your right foot and the toothache was gone.

     In today’s world we drive to the store and buy liquid medicines or pills to cure whatever our problem might be.  What a different world we live in now.  As I sit here I realize how hard it must have been back then and all the things early settlers needed to know to stay healthy.  I notice the small wart on my knee and smile.  The things some people believe!

Footnote:  If, within the next few weeks, you see a small package at the fork of the road and there is a full moon.  Leave it alone!

I hope you enjoyed this post, as I truly liked doing this research!

I write for all ages, from the early reader to adults.  My books range from pictures books for the little ones, to fantasy, time-travel adventures for ages 9 to 13. I also write adult stories, including a family drama and contemporary, paranormal and historical westerns romances, under P. A. Estelle.

I was a school secretary for 21 years.  My husband and I moved to our retirement home in Kingman, AZ, on very rural 54 acres, living on solar and wind only. 

More about my books can be found in the following links:

www.pennystales.com

www.pennyestelle.blogspot.com

http://www.amazon.com/Penny-Estelle/e/B006S62XBY

https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=146&Itemid=82

www.facebook.com/pennystales

www.pinterest.com/pennyestelle

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5820078.Penny_Estelle - Goodreads

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Orphanages and Dairies

In the early days of San Francisco, right in the middle of the gold rush period, I researched and included two institutions in SINS OF THE MOTHERS (book four /Texas Romance family saga series): orphanages and dairies. Called Orphanage Asylums in the day, when they were founded and supported strictly through charitable donations, the new government stepped in to subsidize the children’s care in 1870.

The government paid fifty dollars per year per child paid quarterly to the orphanages to support and maintain the care of the orphans. For this money, the directors had to keep immaculate records as to each child’s name, age, arrival, and leaving—whether by adoption or reaching a self-sustaining age. The Mercy House, my fictitious orphanage met all the criteria.

In my story, partners made rich by their gold mining, Moses Jones and Jethro Risen, discerned the need for an orphanage as children kept turning up without parents, many of whom were simply abandoned when unsuccessful mining left little to feed their families, and parents with gold fever moved on to other areas, leaving their children behind.

The founder the Mercy House Orphanage, Jethro Risen, was divinely inspired to purchase enough land to support a dairy, as well, to provide not only milk for the children but on the job training to the older orphans, giving them the knowledge and experience to make a living when they grew up and eventually left.

But as the dairy went into operation, its profit potential to subsidize the daily expenses of the orphanage shone bright. A quart of milk sold for fifty cents in 1851. It took fifty dollars per month to maintain each cow which in turn produced eight gallons of milk a day worth four dollars or one hundred twenty dollars a month for a net profit of seventy dollars per animal.

Jethro not only imported quality cows, but shorthorn bulls were carried around the Horn in the late 1850s to breed with his resident stock and improve the standards of his producers’ quality and quantity for milk. 

By 1870, San Francisco was the fourteenth largest city in the United States and the dairy industry flourished with their rich pastures and improved cattle herds. The Mercy House orphans, because of their work at the dairy, were ready for employment when they reached the age of leaving the orphanage.

After the Civil War, when my childless heroine in AT LIBERTY TO LOVE (book seven / Texas Romance family saga) is widowed, she thinks of adopting children to share the remainder of her life. As her sister Mary Rachel had married Jethro Risen, she decides to travel to San Francisco (see previous post Stagecoaches and Steamships) to adopt an orphan from the Mercy House.

Loneliness had engulfed her after her husband’s death, and she believed she could be a blessing to the parentless children, providing love and a home. And as God’s economy is for all to be blessed, she expected the baby—or babies—would give purpose and bring great joy to her life.

Her other half-sisters, Gwendolyn and Bonnie Buckmeyer, had previously traveled to San Francisco to help with the orphanage. While it remained unusual to release children for adoption to a single parent in the 1860s, Rebecca Baylor Rusk hoped that family ties would work in her favor.

GIVEAWAY: I'd like to offer a free print book of VOW UNBROKEN, book one in this Christian historical series to one randomly chosen commenter on this blog! In it, you'll meet the mother  of both the lovely ladies on these two covers (book four SINS OF THE MOTHERS and book seven AT LIBERTY TO LOVE! Winner will be chosen and the end of the week, and winner notified.

Do you know an ex-orphan? Have you ever milked a cow? Has God ever inspired you to do something out of the blue?

Hugs and blessings! 

Bio: Caryl McAdoo loves God, and currently writes four series: the historical Christian ‘Texas Romance’ a family saga; a contemporary ‘Red River Romance’; The Generations, her Biblical fiction, and the newest Days of Dread Trilogy for mid-grade readers. Known as the “Singing Pray-er”, she loves praising with new songs the Lord gives her and prays her story gives God glory! In 2008, she and high school sweetheart-husband Ron moved from the DFW area—home for fifty-plus years—to the woods of Red River County. Caryl counts four children and sixteen grandsugars life’s biggest blessings, believing all good things come from the Lord. Besides glorifying Him, she hopes each title also ministers His love, mercy, and grace to its readers. The McAdoos live in Clarksville, the county seat, in the far northeast corner of the Lone Star State with two grandsons.

Blog Tour Tuesday--An Unlikely Marriage by Linda Carroll-Bradd

This week’s Blog Tour Tuesday features

An Unlikely Marriage by Linda Carroll-Bradd

Last week marked the release of An Unlikely Marriage, my second story in Debra Holland’s Montana Sky Kindle World. Secondary characters Torin and Nola from the first release, Laced By Love, are the protagonists in this novella. Not only did I get to view the wedding ceremony from a different viewpoint but I enjoyed delving into the relationship between the sisters. Instead of taking place in tiny Morgan’s Crossing, this story starts out with some familiar characters in Sweetwater Springs.

Blurb:

Helping injured cowboy Torin Quaid drive mustangs north provides a way for vaudevillian Nola York to earn a train ticket east—and get one step closer to her goal of auditioning for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West stage production. The temporary marriage is solely for propriety’s sake. Until disaster strikes, and the two must rely on each other—emotionally and physically—to safely reach Torin’s ranch. Will a marriage of convenience turn into more on a trail drive through Montana Territory?

Purchase Link:

Amazon:  https://amzn.com/B01J4R636Y

Excerpt:

Ten minutes later, all four adults stood in the show wagon’s middle aisle, and no one could move more than a few inches. Thankfully, the dogs were bedded down in their crates built under the cushioned settee that Cinnia claimed as her bed for the night.

Nola and Cinnia requested two minutes behind the sleeping area curtain to put on nightgowns. They wiggled and flopped like fish on a riverbank to slide off their petticoats, drawers, corsets, and chemises before slipping warm flannel gowns over their heads. Taking turns, they removed the pins from each other’s hair then plaited the lengths into single thick braids.

When she climbed down to put away her dress, Nola was careful to clutch the sides of her red gown close to her thighs. Wearing night clothes around males—no matter how sensible and opaque—sent an uncustomary flush to her cheeks. After opening the door, she glanced inside the tallest cupboard, normally filled to the brim with the special dresses of three performing women. The sight of the empty space was another reminder of tomorrow’s farewell. Her throat tightened. She draped the neckline of her rust-colored gown over the farthest wooden peg. Now all the dresses she owned could be unfolded from the storage drawers and hung in this cupboard.

From behind, a firm body bumped then steadied her. “Excuse me.”

The heat from Torin’s hand on her hip seeped through the single layer of flannel and branded her skin. Shaking her head at the nonsense of thinking he’d staked his claim, Nola held up her hands. “We’ve managed this before. What is the problem?” Her personal crisis was the thought of what would come in the next few minutes when she shared a mattress with her…uh, Torin. She couldn’t risk thinking of him as her husband—that would suggest a level of marriage they hadn’t agreed to.

Cinnia pointed between the two men. “They take up more space than you, me, and Dorrie did.” Moving behind Nic, she eased along the aisle to pull open a cupboard door and store her dress and underclothes. “Whatever clothes you men remove need to go into a cupboard. One of the secrets of living in harmony inside a wagon is tidiness.”

A deep groan sounded. Torin clapped his good hand over his heart and turned to look at her, brow wrinkled. “We’re doomed, my dear Nola, because I am a slob.”

“I’m not worried.” Nola scooted the dowels for the hammock to the edge. Then she flashed a smile over her shoulder as she climbed into the sleeping alcove. “I’m a great organizer.” Once on the mattress, she dove under the quilt and scooted to the far edge, near the hatch that led to the driver’s bench.

“Nic, grab the ends here. Nola says the dowels fit in grooves along the cupboard bottoms. This is your sleeping hammock.” With a grunt, Torin climbed up onto the bed and pulled the curtains closed. Silhouetted by lantern light, he curled his large body nearly in half to unfasten his outerwear. Mutterings accented each move, as using only one hand, he scooted his pants down his legs. A minute later, his jeans and shirt dropped to the floor with a thump.

At least, he’s wearing drawers and an undershirt. The pinch of unease loosened from her chest. She’d wondered if he was the type to wear a nightshirt. Since his mustang round-up involved sleeping along the trail, he probably had to be ready for anything as he bedded down each night. Nola breathed in the scent of the campfire clinging to their skin and hair. A scent she’d be experiencing over the next two weeks. Good thing, she liked outdoor smells.

Rustling and jostling noises came from the front of the wagon as the other two got settled in.

“Good night, Nic,” Cinnia whispered.

A whoosh sounded right before the lantern light disappeared. The moonlight filtering through the curtained window fell across their bed, making Nola aware of a much-bigger body occupying the other half, or two-thirds, of her mattress.

Too tall to fit the mattress length, Torin laid at an angle on his right side, facing the curtain. The quilt barely covered the top of his shoulder.

Probably the most comfortable position for his wrapped left wrist. His injury. Her thoughts stilled, and she bit back a gasp. In all the hustle of the wedding and setting up the camp, she’d forgotten to offer him willow bark tea. He’d had at least one cupful every morning and evening since they’d met. She levered herself up on an elbow, wondering if Torin was still awake and if she should offer to remedy the oversight.

A breathy snore was her answer.

One simple wifely duty, and she’d failed. An omission that boded ill for the next two weeks.

~~**~~

My first story in the Montana Sky Kindle World

About The Author:

After years spent in the administrative support field, Linda decided to exercise another part of her brain and write a novel. She loved reading romance and figured that’s what she’d write. Easier said than done. After years of workshops and RWA chapter meetings, she finally saw her manuscripts place in contests. Twelve years after her first writing class, she sold a confession story. From that point on, she couldn’t be stopped and is always pleased when her sweet-to-sensual contemporary and historical stories find homes.

With interests as widespread as baking, crocheting, watching dog agility matches, and reading thrillers by Swedish authors, Linda is the mother to 4 adult children and grandmother to 2 granddaughters. She currently lives in the southern California mountains with her husband of 37 years and their two much-loved dogs.

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