DT Lloyd's History

PURELY PERSONAL

Chapter XVIII of Doyal T. Lloyd's History of Upshur County, Texas
Edited by Sarah Green (1966)

One of the Saturday morning jobs on an early day farm was to shuck corn, enough corn to fill a 48-pound flour sack, run the ears through a corn sheller, and take it to a grist mill to be made into meal. The grist mill took a toll of about 10 per cent of the corn for grinding it.

This writer has seen a hundred or more sacks of corn at Darnell's grist mill which was located about at the northeast corner of Wood and Marshall Street intersection. Many times one of the older boys would put this sack of corn on a horse or mule and take it to the grist mill on Saturday afternoon.

EARLY DAY REMEDIES

Black Draught was the most popular medicine made.

If you got to feeling badly you had to take a round of calomel which would make you very sick and certain foods were strictly forbidden.

Nearly everybody had chills and fever, as there were no screens to keep out mosquitoes, therefore, Groves Chill Tonic and Quinine were very popular.

There were no antiseptics for cuts and bruises except Cloverine Salve and Turpentine.

All babies had to take catnip tea.

Turpentine and sugar was the only sore throat remedy.

Sally rag on chest for cold.

Asafetida balls around neck.

Sassafras tea made from the tender roots of the wild sassafras trees was a popular drink for the spring of the year to thin the blood.

Sulphur and hog grease was a fine remedy for itch and there was plenty of itch in the early days. You had to take off all your clothes. take a good hot bath, smear your whole body with sulphur, cream of tartar and grease then put on clean clothing. Repeat this about three times and the itch was cured.

For sores and boils slippery elm poultices were popular.

Many people ate poke salad leaves for greens in the spring because they were supposed to be healthful.

THE WONDERFUL CURE

Pine tar 1 pint, kerosene 1 quart, oil of cedar 2 ounces, sassafras oil 2 ounces.
CURES: Toothache by application in 3 minutes, sore throat 12 hours, neuralgia in 30 minutes, mumps in 24 hours, rheumatism in 4 days, tetter in 3 days, cramp colic in 10 minutes, croup in 15 minutes. Manufactured and sold by R. O. Honna of Upshur Co.

UPSHUR COUNTY CORN MEAL DUMPLINGS

One cup boiling water
Two Cups sifted corn meal
One teaspoonful salt

Pour boiling water over meal and salt. Add more water if meal swells too dry. Mold into dumplings, the size of a walnut, while hot, dipping hands in cold water to keep them from burning. Drop into fresh pork or chicken broth. Cook 15 or 20 minutes tightly covered.

Most of us have eaten chicken and dumplings made of flour dough but in the early days when flour was scarce the above corn meal dumplings were delicious.

There were many other ways to make fine corn bread.

Such as:
Johnny Cake
Yeast Corn-Bread Loaf Bread
Corn Meal Mush
Corn Bread Turkey Dressing
Corn Meal Pudding
Crackling Bread

This writer always looked forward to "hog killing time," be cause soon thereafter we were sure to have Crackling Bread. Young people today have never had the joy of eating spare ribs, backbones homecured ham, country sausage packed in twoinch sacks, pickled pigs feet, sousemeat, as well as crackling bread. Many people ate chittlings but our family never learned to love them. Rut dry salt bacon is still good eating.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN__

You sat down to milk a cow and she lashed you across the face with a tail full of cockleburs? Then you know what pain is.

Women wore high top buttoned shoes and "rats" in their hair?

Men wore derby hats and pretty silk shirts?

Ford Coupes had a rumble seat?

Great grandmothers smoked a cob pipe and most elderly women dipped snuff ?

Most men chewed Star Navy Or Brown Mule tobacco or smoked Bull Durham or RJR, and rolled their own?

Every family owned a surrey?

It took two good mules to pull a bale of cotton across the deep sand on the square in Gilmer?

They had board sidewalks all around the square?

Women and girls had long hair and the first girl who 'bobbed her hair" was considered very modern (fast)?

There was not a mile of paved street or road in Upshur County?

The only fuel was wood?

You saw your first automobile or airplane?

People broke their arms cranking a model T Ford?

You had a flat and you patched your own inner tube?

Everybody said two bits four bits, and six bits?

The only drinking water we had was drawn from a well with a bucket and rope on a pulley?

We had wooden water buckets and gourd dippers?

We had a wash stand on the back porch with a round hole cut in a 12-inch hoard to fit the tin wash pan and when you finished washing your hands you poured the water out on the ground?

The children sat on each side of the dining table on benches with the mother at one end and father at the others?

The new baby slept between the mother and father?

You saw a bottle fed baby, and knew its mother was unhealthy?

People had chills and fever every summer and we kept quinine in capsules that you filled yourself?

They had eightday clocks that the father wound every Sunday morning and they struck on the half hour?

You would go to the shop and watch the blacksmith make shoes and put them on the horse, and you watched with awe the blacksmith put the horse or mule's hind foot between his legs and nail shoes on his feet?

You watched a blacksmith sharpen a heel-sweep or a bull tongue and almost beat a tune with his hammer and anvil?

You got the blacksmith to let you pump his forge?

They made fans out of turkey feathers?

They made yard brooms out of willow bushes?

You burned rags in the bedroom before going to bed to chase the mosquitoes out and they soon came back"

The men shaved every Sunday morning with a straight razor and kept the razor sharp with a razor strap, which was used at other times to whip children?

[About the author: Doyal T. Lloyd, a veteran school man turned banker, made an avocation of the history of his native Upshur County. He was a school teacher for 34 years, including 20 years as superintendent of the East Mountain School District. He held a BA from North Texas and an MA from the University of Texas. He also wrote a history of Masonry in Gilmer, published in 1954. He served as the Chairman of the Upshur County Historical Commission.]

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