Appalachian Legacy

She was two years old.

Before dawn, her grandmother awakened her and told her to get dressed.  Breakfast was on the huge round table; sausage, eggs, biscuits  & gravy and fried mushrooms. 

After washing the dishes, they assembled the tools for the days’ work; scissors, knives, baskets, woven bags, small spade and clippers. 

Dawn was just beginning to break as they left the house.  The grass, heavily wet with dew, drenched her bare feet as they began the slow walk up the mountain. Birds greeted the coming of the sun with their incredible melody of praise; taking brief flight at the advent of their passing, then settling back to their business. 

“Now, I want you to larn this ‘un today”, said her grandmother.  Setting the little girl down before the selected plant, she instructed her grand-daughter to stare at the plant until she told her to stop.

The little girl sat down beside the plant, and began to study it.  She noted the overall shape of the plant, its’ leaves, the stem, the bloom.  Then she pinched off a piece of it, rubbed it between her hands, smelled and tasted the essence of it.

 After ten minutes of study, her grandmother said, “There.  That’s enough.  Now look for it.”

When she raised her eyes, the child was once again astonished at her new ability to see that particular plant everywhere she looked.  Now she had another wild herb stored in her memory, added to the many already embedded there.

Then the real work of the day began.  Grandmother always had a specific list of plants and herbs she needed for her herbal remedies.  She was an Appalachian Herbwoman.

A racial mix of Scots, Irish and Cherokee, her grandmother had learned her trade from the hands of her mother and grandmother.  For decades, the only ‘doctor’ in this isolated area of the Appalachian Mountain chain was the ‘yarbdoctor’.  Equally deft at delivering a baby, setting a broken bone, and treating the various illnesses of her people, the ‘Herbwoman’ held a position of immense respect in the mountains.

Now, with the coming of modern life, none of her 4 daughters wanted to continue the practice of herbal medicine.  Of 29 grandchildren, only the 2-year-old daughter of her youngest son had any interest in her craft.  She found the child to be an apt pupil, who delighted in the natural world and was never happier than when out foraging with her grandmother.

God gives the gift of connecting with the natural world to very few.  The little girl felt completely at home in the woods and fields of the mountains.  The plants were her friends, the flowers and fruits of nature her playthings.  She made her dolls from fresh flowers, and built entire communities for her dolls with moss, leafy twigs and nuts. 

Her Grandmother’s mental list of  plants was not cast in stone.  In addition to the specific needed items, they were open to accept any of nature’s bounty as they came across it.  They could always make ‘room’ for ‘shrooms’.  Wild berries, tree fruits, nuts, roots, shoots, seeds, plants, leaves and other treasures were easily accommodated.  Wild food was as much a part of the daily table fare as was the produce from the large family garden. 

Indeed, her grandmother looked upon the mountains as one huge natural garden, given to her people by God Himself, complete with instructions for its’ usage.  “Never take the best plant”, she instructed the little girl.  “Always leave the best ones to go to seed and replenish the supply.”

It was the same with bramble plants.  When they picked wild black raspberries, wineberries, dewberries, or blackberries, her grandmother would always pin the tops of the new canes to the ground with homemade staples.  She cut lengths of wire, bent them into a ‘U’ shape, cleared a small patch of dirt and pinned the top 4 inches of the cane to the earth.  Later, when they came back in the fall, she would cut the newly rooted cane free from the mother plant.  In this way, she perpetuated the growth of the patch.

When gathering ginsang, she only took 4 or 5 year old roots, carefully planting the berries from each plant to ensure the survival of the valuable herb.  These roots were carefully trimmed, washed and dried in the hot, airless attic.  After drying, they would be sorted, weighed and either made into a premium tonic or sold for ‘cash money’.

Her ‘medicine cabinet’ was filled with tonics, remedies, concoctions, tinctures and salves.  All of her liquid ‘medicines’ were alcohol based; her husband made and sold the best ‘moonshine’ in those parts.  He used only ‘red corn’ for his still, and the faint red tint given by the corn was his products’ ‘signature’. 

She had remedies for everything; she fully believed that God had given mankind a natural medicine for ‘everthin’ that ails a body’ in nature’s pharmacy.  She was deeply distressed and concerned with the damage being done to the mountains by coal mining.

She was wise in all areas of life.  She was a psychologist, therapist, mentor, guide and spiritual advisor.  She often commented that her shoulders made ‘dandy cryin’ posts’, and she dispensed comfort along with some hard, good common sense. 

Her views on life were simple yet incredibly deep.  “A body knows right from wrong”, she often said, “They just need to be reminded of it sometimes.”  Young troublemakers were brought to her door for correction.  Those who just needed extra attention got it; those who needed a ‘whuppin’ got that as well.  The leather strap on the woodshed door was well known and feared in the commuity.  She had deadly aim, but she dispensed hugs and kisses after the discipline.  “It’s for yore own good,” she would say, and she meant it. 

“Think it through.”, was her mantra.  In that one sentence, she expressed all the common sense anyone would ever need in life.  It wasn’t enough to just act and react to life, she would sit and think of all the possible connotations to words, deeds and actions.  Then, once her course of action was decided upon, she would ‘go to work on life’.

Always open to new knowledge, new facts, constantly re-assessing the situation and correcting her course, she was a role model of all role models.  Long before the slogan became into popular usage, she believed that a ‘mind was a terrible thing to waste’.  “Get some schoolin’, but get enough education to help you, not jest ruin you.  And never, ever, git above yore raisin’.”

This, then, is the Appalachian Legacy I have inheirited; like my grandmother before me, I am an Appalachian Herbwoman.

May my life be an honor to her.