By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Emily Fisher, born into slavery about 1808, developed an herbal remedy that healed many a resident of Jackson County, Mo.
“It is still remembered for its healing qualities, though the formula has been lost,” says the plaque honoring her at the National Frontier Trails Center in Independence, Mo.
Emily Fisher’s salve probably had its roots in her Southern Black heritage.
Such was the case with my great-grandmother, Rose Ware, or just Maw, born into slavery in Spotsylvania County, Va., about 1851. Maw learned plant medicine from her mother, Lucy Wilson. Those remedies have come down to me through my mother, the late Cleoria Sparrow, who was raised on Maw’s farm.
“In slavery time, and even when I was growing up, the doctor was called only in dire cases,” my mother used to say. “The herbs gave you a fighting chance.”
Rhythm of the seasons
Maw used the land’s gifts to preserve her family’s and neighbors’ health, as did Emily Fisher. After freedom came, Maw sharecropped with her husband and saved up so they could buy land. Widowed in her late 40s or early 50s, she plowed, planted, raised her four children and held on to her farm. She lived to age 113, her mind clear until the morning she died.
Maw’s remedies followed the rhythm of the seasons. In early spring, she picked pipsissewa and used the whole plant to brew a bittersweet tea. Everyone drank a quarter of a cup each night to cleanse the body and tone it for the months of farming ahead.
Maw used the mint that leapt up in July to calm stomach queasiness. Calamus, too, thrived in nearby ditches. Chewing it quickly settled the stomach.
In fall, deep purple
Rose water mixed with lard soothed work-roughened hands.
Maw poured liquid from milkweed pods on warts to help shrink them.
When fall colors ran riot over the countryside, Maw picked deep purple pokeweed berries. She would pour whisky over the berries and let them sit for months. The essence stood ready to fight winter bouts of rheumatism.
A remedy made from red oak bark loosened the grip of many a cold. Maw would steep the bark in hot water, then have her patient gargle with the liquid. It drew phlegm from the throat.
Yellow onions cured chest colds. Maw chopped up the onions, stirred in sugar or molasses, and let the mixture simmer for hours near the fire. The patient ate a cupful for two or three nights.
Winter trips to the kiln — a hole in the ground lined with burlap bags and straw, and filled with potatoes — might leave a child with an earache. Maw blew smoke into the child’s ear to help ease the pain.
Throughout the winter, pine tags (needles) served to make cough medicine. Maw put them in scalding water and let them stand. She removed the needles and added molasses to the essence to make a soothing syrup.
I wouldn’t necessarily vouch for the safety and success of these remedies, but with roots and leaves, bark and berries, Maw left me a legacy for all seasons.
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