With the raising of ten children, Mom never called a doctor, unless she had to. Even in her elderly years, she did her best to stay out of the doctor’s office. She could cure most anything. Sometimes it was her wonder drugs. Other times she healed with words of comfort, often with laughter.
Mom told us she always wanted lots of children. She was elated, when her first child – a boy – arrived. Yet, within a few months, this baby died. In order to overcome her grief, Mom often walked the long, country road.
Mom had been so sick and nauseated, in her first pregnancy, that Pop declared, “We’re not having any more children!” As a matter of fact, they had planned to adopt a poor neighbor’s twin babies. They were turned down, due to “needed improvements.” ( Mom gave birth to all her children at home.)
Mom’s first bout with illness came with her second child, Lester. He had whooping cough at four weeks old. Then, Mom got it. For a week, Mom had only snatches of sleep. One day, she was delirious from deprivation of sleep. Pop found her wrapping Lester in newspaper, on the kitchen table. She believed he was dead.
Mom and Pop went through whooping cough three times, (three kids at a time), until all the children went through it. Pop would hold the children out the window to get air to breathe. At one time, all had scarlet fever. Anita and Mary Alice had pneumonia. In those days doctor’s quarantined the house. No one was allowed to visit.
When the Lindberg baby was kidnapped, Mary Alice was the baby. Mom had gone upstairs to check on her. She came running back down, screaming, “Mary Alice was kidnapped!” Pop went upstairs to look for the baby. He found her under the crib. She, somehow, slid out between the rails, of the metal crib.
In a short time, after eating ice cream, Dorothy became ill. The ambulance was called. She was in the hospital seven days, with her eyes closed. They thought she would die. Lester was called home from the service. When Dorothy came out of her coma, Lester was the first person she talked to. Paul was in the navy, stationed in Cuba. He sent her a beautiful watch.
Mom said, when she was pregnant, she felt better working outside, even if the beds didn’t get made. She sat babies in a cardboard box, at the end of a row of potatoes, or nearby when milking cows. During corn husking season, the young ones were placed on a blanket, in the corner of the high wagon.
Mom recalls, one particular day, Pop was irritated with her constant nausea and sick children. So she refused to help in the field. She said, “That was the fastest husked field he ever did by himself!”
My sister, Anita, remembers one of Mom’s best cures. When she was young, she fell on a board, with a rusty nail. Mom pulled the nail out. Then she sent my brother to the meadow for a special wonder drug – cow poop. When the poop arrived, she placed a big wad of cow poop around the area and wrapped it in an old sheet. Next morning, the wound was clean.
Another sister, Jannetta, told me, Mom sometimes wrapped bacon strips around the wound, but if cow poop was available, that came first.
Animals were treated like children as well. Mom raised peafowl. One peacock was bleeding profusely, at the throat. Her solution was to smother the peacock’s throat with Mazola oil. The peacock lived to shriek its announcement it was alive, at dawn the very next day.
Mom always saw daylight in any dark alley. My sister, Anita, can attest to Mom’s healing words. At 47, Anita was paralyzed from a stroke on the left side of her face and arm. Mom faithfully told her, “God squeezed you so hard because he loved you so much. He’ll make you better again.” And He did.
Dorothy recalls, as a kid, if Mom couldn’t get dirt out of her eye, she placed a fennel seed in it. Mom is to have learned this from her father. As a matter of fact, in Mom’s 80s, she used this same fennel seed, when she had an irritation in her eye. That time, it didn’t work so well. She ended up going to the doctor and almost missing Pop’s funeral!
Previous to that eye incident, Mom had another visit to the eye doctor. He told her to think about a corneal transplant. Often, the six daughters, had signed Mother’s Day and birthday cards from “You’re Favorite Daughter.” So she called each and every one of her daughters, “Since you’re my favorite daughter, I’d like a favor.” We all said we’d do whatever we could. She continued, “I need a corneal transplant. Could I borrow your eye for a few years?” We all ended the “favorite daughter” routine in a hurry!
And, of course, Mom was at her best healing with laughter. Gladys was in the hospital with minor surgery. The sisters and I took Mom into the hospital to visit Gladys. We all know how tender a belly can be after an operation. The minute Mom stepped into the hospital room, she started to laugh. It’s a thing we have. We laugh over anything. We all ended up laughing. As Gladys held her belly, to hold back her laughter, she ordered, “Mom, and the rest of you, get out. Don’t come back until you’re done laughing!” I think it took us three tries until we were finally able to enter the hospital room without laughing.
Mom had a couple of bouts of illness in her early 80s. One hospital stay was a classic. Mary Alice had stopped by one evening, for a short visit, to find Mom tired and faint. Finally, having gotten Mom to her chair, Mom collapsed completely. The ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital. Diagnosis: overdose effect! It seems Mom had taken medication, prescribed by her doctor, followed by a shot of liquor (to help her sleep). Since Mom was never a drinker, we teased her unmercifully.
Mom always hated anything that had to do with doctors. When she crushed her vertebrae in fall, the doctor prescribed four weeks of bed rest. She politely told that doctor, “You mean two weeks. I have garden work to do!”
One time her doctor prescribed nitroglycerin lotion, to be applied to her leg every day. She came home complaining, “He’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to do this the rest of my life!” After all, she was only 81.
On a visit to the hospital found Mom scolding the nurse in the x-ray room. “X-rays are dangerous. You can tell the doctor whatever he finds, I intend to keep it!”
By Mom’s 88th year, she had two strokes. The last left her bedridden a few months. Most times she knew her children, but she was always child-like. Through this, she never lost her humor.
On one of the doctor’s visits, she thought he couldn’t see her. She said to me, “That doctor is dumb.” The doctor bent forward and said, “Mary, I’m going to give you a shot for talking about me.” They both laughed.
Another time, the doctor was amazed at how well she was doing. She pointed her finger to her brow and in her faltering voice said, “That’s because I know how to smile.” She was right. My mother was a born healer, whether with her concoctions of wonder drugs, inspiring words, or with laughter.
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to raising children to humorous stories about her and her husband to everyday stories to season stories and more.
