Family uses herbal remedies instead of doctors
Ray describes the herbal home remedies that her grandparents and other Barnardsville residents used in lieu of going to a doctor. Her grandfather gathered herbs while working as a logger, and her grandmother prepared them.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Geraldine Ray, September 13, 1997. Interview R-0128. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Which one of those games was your favorite?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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I always loved to play ball. And I have a rock in my knee
from jumpin rope, now.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Really? A rock in your knee? How did that happen?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Well, they used to put rocks; We didn't have no
grass, we had cinders where you'd bring&; see we had
potbellied stove in the school and the potbellied
stove; well, J.T. for one, which is now my present
husband, used to go down there and start them early in the morning
before we got to school or Robert Cown or Nathaniel Brooks and when
the cinders; they used coal; and when the
cinders burn down to where they wasn't gonna burn, they'd take the
cinders and spread em on the ground and every so often they would
brings cinders from other places to keep the ground from being
muddy. So, we was out jumpin rope to see how high we could jump and
my foot caught and I went down on my knee and I still got the scar
and I got a little black place on my knee where the cinder went in
it.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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You weren't able to get that out at the doctor?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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One little spot still there.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Did you go to the doctor?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Oh, yeah. Well, see back then they sent you to the Health
Department where we had a Health Nurse. It wasn't so much a health
department, it was a Health Nurse that went around and she was
located up here in the town hall in Weaverville. And you would go up
there and they'd dress your knee, give you your shots you had to
have for school and all that. So, that's how that was done.
Children at the Weaverville Colored School played ball and jumped rope during recreation time, but they sometimes hurt themselves by falling on the cinders from the school's heating source -- a potbellied stove. They visited a health nurse rather than a doctor.
Children at the Weaverville Colored School visited a local health nurse when they suffered injuries during recreation time.
- 6. GERALDINE RAY:
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Mmhhm, then most of the time if you got hurt at
home you could wash it out with kerosene oil or alcohol or something
and put a rag on it and you'd go on.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Kerosene oil?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Yeah. If you stuck your foot on a nail they
would. You'd go pour some kerosene oil down in your foot
and that would stop the infection and you would heal.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Oh. I did that once; stepped on a rusty nail. It
went all the way through my foot.
- GERALDINE RAY:
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I've had that done twice.
(laughs)
I've had that done once since I've been married, I've
stepped on a nail had to go up and get a get a tetanus shot. See
back then, back then they did not take you to the doctor for
everything.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Why is that?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Well they fed you herbs. They'd give you herbs for colds,
castor oil for colds, cod liver oil to keep you from havin a cold,
but mainly when you got sick they'd bet on castor oil or Boneset tea
or Life Everlastin. You could smoke the Life Everlastin, which the
common name was Rabbit Tobacco. And they'd make all this stuff, well
they had certain things when they thought you had worms, they'd give
you uhhh;what was it, scullcap; no, it wasn't
scullcap. But, you had a herb that was scullcap, I've forgotten now
what the used that for. You had, I can't remember now the name of
the one that they used for worms.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Was it Pennyroyal? You told me that once.
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Yeah, that was what it was. And see they went [every fall?]
and dug roots. You had rattlesnake root, you had Black Cohosh, Blue
Cohosh, Boneset, Rattlesnake root (again), Wintergreen, and they
kept all these little herbs.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Now, when you say they, who are you referring to?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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My grandparents. And that's what they uh . . . Well, to
make me sleep they'd give me Catnip tea. There's an herb named
Catnip, they'd make catnip tea and you'd go to sleep.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Grandma Whiteside would do this?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Grandma Coon also. Both grandparents would do that. See, I
never really stayed with grandma Whiteside much. I was just in and
out of their house.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Oh, so you were talking about your father's grandparents
(parents).
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Right. I was raised by them.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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I was confused there. Did you grandfather ever do that or
was it mostly your grandmother?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Both of em. 'Cause, he was a logger and he would go in the
mountains a log and if he found things like that he would bring it
home.
- KELLY ELAINE NAVIES:
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Would he administer it to you if you were sick?
- GERALDINE RAY:
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Well, he'd bring it to her and she'd know what to do. But,
he was a spoiler. I was his pet. I could sit in his lap and do
anything.