Author Archives: J. B.

Childhood Musical Experiences in Rural Tennessee

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Childhood Musical Memories in Rural Tennessee:

M.H.: My mother played the piano, and in fact, she won one, one time, from a contest, when she was sixteen years of age. So, she taught us all how to play the piano. Even when I was growing up, we had the piano and an old fashioned pump organ, and everybody in my family played something. My father played a banj–not a banjo, but it’s like a violin.

ME: A fiddle?

M.H.: Yeah, that’s it. And we would have like a hoedown, they called them. Where men would be playing guitars, bass, and fiddles and stuff. That was our entertainment. We made our entertainment. Because we had no electricity, before radio and TV, and that would come many years later. So everyone in my family was able to take lessons from mother, and play the piano, and fiddle. But it just wasn’t my thing. I had to practice in a room that had no fire in the winter time, and those keys are cold, so I didn’t love it. I didn’t succeed, but I had a brother and a sister that could sit down and play anything if they wanted to, you know. And my father was a four-note singer, he was in a quartet that only sung four notes, and he went all over the country in the summer time, for all day singings and stuff like that. But that was very rare, you didn’t have very much singing there outside of church.

ME: At that time, there were much more interactions with others, and that’s how entertainment was.

M.H.: Oh yes, yes, always. ME: Now, many people are entertained by themselves.

M.H.: Radio and TV.

ME: Yes, and computers.

M.H. In fact, let’s see. In 1943, I was a teenager, and I went to work during the war, at a plant called Continental Radio & Television. Now there was no such thing as a television, you heard of it, but nobody could buy one. But this plant where I worked, they had one in the laboratory, experimenting with it, and I got to see it.

 

 

M.H. recalls the type of musical entertainment that she received in the years of her youth on a rural Tennessee farm, which had been her family’s home for a number of generations. They were poor, yet they managed to have a piano, an organ, and sufficient musical practice. Then, the implications of modern entertainment are discussed, such as the mediums of television, computers, and radio. I believe that entertainment nowadays, for many people in the west, has become gradually more isolated over the decades, with each new electronic innovation rooting out previous practices in a number of ways. Then, when the internet finally became popular by the year 2000, entertainment had changed for this modern era. I personally spend much of my time using computers, whether for work or for entertainment, so I am effectively a part of this relatively new system that has been in place for the past fifteen years, and longer for some others. I know that my family had access to the internet with a Windows 95, and then a Windows 98, which I think started for us around 1997 or 1998, and we ended up buying both computer models. To this day however, because of a very musical upbringing, myself, having been taught skills, I still enjoy playing the piano and other keyboard instruments. I am grateful to have an opportunity to personally create music, experiencing even to myself, although it is very often that others get to hear it. Music is a past time that is capable of uniting individuals, indeed.

The Heart-Shaped Leaf and it’s Healing Properties

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

The Heart-shaped Leaf and it’s Healing Properties:

ME: Could you describe this leaf, being an example of folk medicine?

M.H.: Yes. ME: So what can you tell me about the leaf?

M.H. Well, we were very poor, and of course then, we didn’t have a doctor that would come to our house very often, but one of my brothers got burned very bad playing by the fireplace. He burned his shin on his legs really bad, he was wearing denim jeans, we called them overalls at the time, and it was an injury the size of about four inches up his shin. And so, it would never heal, it kept burning him all the time, and of course as a little boy, he would cry all the time. Well, one day, this woman, who was a Cherokee Indian stopped by, and she told us about this plant. Well actually she went down to the woods, and got it growing by the moss, and brought it up. It was shaped like a heart, and you would just put it into the skillet, and heat it, and it would melt into a wax. She put it on his leg, it quit burning and it healed, and years later, one of his children skinned his knee with a tricycle, and he went to Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, Knoxville, and even St. Louis, and he was trying to go to different hospitals to get it healed, and they would take all these biopsies. So, my father and I, we went back to the old home place, and we got this plant, and we went to him. We put it in the skillet, melted it, and in one week it healed. It was a heart-shaped leaf, and something the Indians had done.

ME: I remember you telling me that story before, and it always amazed me.

M.H.: Well, the Indians had a lot of remedies. Even in the medical places today, now that was about thirty years ago that happened, well let’s see. It was the year 1950, or into the 1950s.

ME: So, how was your brother’s health, after the wax from the leaf was administered?

M.H.: It healed immediately, and we took the plants to him, and he set them in the north side of his house. This was in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and the last I heard, there were still these plants growing around his house, and he has kept them all these years in case he needed to use them again on the knee, and he had several kids he raised, and four grandchildren. Uh, he would get that, and melt the plant, and that was it. Put the ointment on the knee, and it would heal in a week’s time, completely.

ME: That’s an amazing recovery. Just in one week.

M.H.: Yeah, considering no one else could do anything. The medical profession couldn’t do anything.

ME: Then instead of an advanced medical procedure, a natural remedy took it’s place, and everything worked. Thank you.

 

M.H. describes an extraordinary natural, folk remedy that she attributes to the Cherokee Native Americans, or at least the particular woman who had introduced her treatments to her family. I am astounded at how quickly the natural recovery rate had been, but I have no reason to regard her account in a state of disbelief. Natural medicine can work to powerful effect, in ways that may seem baffling in terms of understanding modern medicinal practices. Much of it comes down to making do with regional resources, and that heart-shaped plant is supposed to be native to that region, although not described by any particular name.

The Great Depression and Brushing Teeth

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Brushing Your Teeth During the Great Depression in Rural Tennessee:

ME: What did you do to brush your teeth during the Great Depression in Tennessee?

M.H.: Yeah, well I was a little bit older, and I was twelve years old. When I got my first store-bought toothbrush. Before that, we would always make them ourselves, by getting a branch from a black gum maple tree, and we would just peel the skin from the bark, it was young bark, and we would take an end of it and start brushing our teeth. Basically we would use salt and soda together, and would rinse our mouths out with water, because we didn’t have toothpaste either.

ME: And, how long did you brush your teeth like this?

M.H.: Up until I was twelve years old, when I got my first store-bought toothbrush. Then I started using toothbrushes from the store, then.

ME: What year could you remember it being?

M.H.: Uh, let’s see. It was 1939, or ’40, because I was born in ’27. Twelve years beyond that.

 

M.H. describes how she, and her family brushed their teeth during the years of the Great Depression, up until she had first bought, and subsequently stuck with commercially available toothbrushes and toothpaste. She and her family needed to utilize natural resources, in order to accomplish what many people take for granted as a routine practice today.

A Wedding Artifact

Nationality: American
Age: 20s
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

A Wedding Artifact:

J.S.: “I cannot recall seeing, so much as hearing about certain artifacts that have been a part of my cultural folklore. The first artifact that comes to mind is a broom that would be used in wedding ceremonies. I remember my mother talking about “jumping the broom” at parent’s wedding. To this day she doesn’t know where the broom is. I have even seen a picture of family friends jumping over a broom at the doors of the church at the end of the church service for their wedding. My paternal grandmother, or E’ah, would tell me that jumping the broom was a tradition dating back to slavery, when black slaves technically could not be married, because marriage was a civil contract, and civil contracts could only be entered into by free persons. The couple would jump over a broom at the conclusion of their wedding service, usually held where the slaves would gather for worship. It has some connection to west-African traditions, though my grandmother never elaborated much more than that.”

J.S. explains here his experience concerning artifacts of folklore in his life, especially one that pertains to a wedding ritual. He reflects upon this ritual fondly, despite not knowing where the broom is at present. Jumping the broom is something he regards to be an African American tradition that is even supposed to have roots back to West Africa itself.