![]() ![]() “For colds she used goose grease Mother raised geese. In a 1982 interview my great-aunt, Elizabeth Kaiser Pittz told me about the remedies used by her parents, Nicholas and Susanna Theisen Kaiser. They gave the whiskey to him to kill the pain. The neighbor came over and asked Dad and he went up in the attic and dragged the bottle down, melted off the wax, broke the seal and gave them some. And somebody did, the neighbor’s boy got real bad and the doctor said if they could find some whiskey it might help. “Just before prohibition began my Dad bought a quart and he sealed it with wax and put it in the attic in case somebody got sick. In a December 1984 interview of my Mother, Edna Kline Trausch, she told this story. In addition to being an ingredient in cold medicines, whiskey was also used as a pain reliever. If someone wasn’t feeling well, many mothers would remark, “All he needs is a good physic.” A physic is any medicine or medicinal herb and the word was often synonymous with laxative. Home made cough medicine, onion or mustard plasters, goose grease whether it was the remedies, the mother’s tender loving care and prayers, or just luck, if the baby survived, from that time on, the mother swore by her remedy. On can imagine a desperate mother, whose baby is ill using what she had on hand trying to cure her sick child. “We took a couple spoonsful whenever we had a cough.” In the fall he would take a bottle of whiskey, add to it rock candy and “some kind of oil” and shake. “We put up with a lot.” She also remembered her father, Jule Bassett, making a cough syrup. Cover up, leave on until cold, and repeat. Fry onions in a small account of lard, spread between cloths and lay on the chest why hot. Grandma Leona Kline also remembered onion poultices. When it was removed the skin came with it, leaving a big sore. The heat felt so good he left the plaster on too long. ![]() My Grandmother, Leona Bassett Kline, told me that when Grandpa Dan Kline broke a rib he thought a mustard plaster would help relieve the pain. If left on too long it will blister the skin. Spread the paste on a cloth, cover with another cloth and put on the chest until the skin turns red. To make a mustard plaster, take a small amount of ground mustard, combine with a little flour and water to make a paste. Mustard plasters, strong enough to take off the skin, and substitute a new pain for the original, were often used. If my Dad felt a cold coming on he rubbed his neck, chest and back with Mentholatum, took a good shot of whiskey and went to bed to “sweat it out.” There was a firm belief that the stronger or more unpleasant the remedy, the better. Then, like now, there seemed to be more remedies for the miseries of colds and chest congestion than any other ailments. This syrup was good for colds and coughs. She also remembered her mother making a cold medicine by combining raw onions, lots of sugar and a few drops of turpentine, placing it on the back of the cook stove and letting it set until it turned into a syrup. Her mother combined goose grease and turpentine for a chest rub to loosen congestion. Lavina Clark, wife of Silas “Doc” Clark of Juniata, (brother of Grandma Clarice Clark Renschler Bugg) told me that her mother used goose grease because it was “greasier’ than lard. It was smeared on hands and faces to prevent chapping, combined with turpentine or kerosene to be rubbed on chests and throats for colds and applied to burns and blisters. Goose grease was an ingredient in many home remedies. Most women used remedies that had been passed down from their mothers and grandmothers. However, without modern drugs and surgical techniques, doctors could do little more than Grandma with her home remedies. If a doctor was called it was usually after all home remedies had failed and by then it was often too late. My father and his mother, Catherine Kaiser Trausch, often said “The further away you stay from doctors, the better off you’ll be.” Many times people made do by doctoring themselves with what they had on hand. They didn’t know or ignored basic hygiene and spread germs from one patient to the next. Those available were often lacking in medical education and probably did as much harm as good. For our rural ancestors, the doctor was many long miles away by horseback. ![]() We may look back on life a hundred or more years ago as idyllic, stress free and romantic, but for many of our ancestors it was a dreary round of poverty, grinding toil, and frequent illness.
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