Sassafras, the Root Beer Tree by Jodi Lea Stewart

1884. A mother dies soon after giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The girl is sent to live with relatives in the Pacific Northwest. The boy goes to Indian Territory, Oklahoma, in a covered wagon with his maternal uncle and his wife. He is a mere two weeks old. 

That baby boy was my maternal grandfather.

Native American Ways

Indian Territory consisted of the lands of the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks *Muscogees* and Seminoles, along with twenty-two other tribes.

Thomas Elmer blended well with his Native American neighbors. They trusted him to participate in their dance ceremonies, and they taught him the secrets of survival by using nature’s roots, leaves, barks, and plants.

He used that knowledge for his family, and for others, the rest of his life. The longevity of his eleven children speaks of the wisdom of those natural aids and preventives.

Case in point – my mother. She’s 93-years-young, has all her mental faculties, and can still cut a rug when she really wants to. She is Thomas Elmer’s eighth child, and one of the tonics she was given each Spring season was sassafras tea. 

Thinning (purifying) the blood

Thomas Elmer insisted his family members drink sassafras tea often every Spring to thin their blood after the long, harsh Oklahoma winters.

Sassafras trees, with their irregular lobed leaves and aromatic bark, grew wild and plentiful in the Oklahoma woods. In early America, sassafras and tobacco were the main exports from the colonies to England. Sassafras was revered for its medicinal qualities, as well as for the beauty of its wood.

Thomas Elmer gathered roots every spring, and after thoroughly cleansing them, placed them in a pot of water to boil. Soon, the water turned a beautiful clear pink. When the family was fortunate enough to have sugar on hand, they were allowed to add some to the spicy tea, along with fresh cow cream.

You can believe it didn’t take much persuasion for eleven little country kids who rarely got anything sweet to line up for thinning their blood by drinking that delicious, sweet brew!

As a very young child, I remember seeing a pot on the back of my grandma’s stove with sticks (roots) poking out of the top. That was fascinating, and the tea we had from those roots tasted wonderful. I looked forward to our sassafras tea episodes every year.

Later on, when I was a teenager and more snooty sophisticated, I doubted my granddad’s theory about sassafras tea thinning the blood.

Old wives’ tale, I thought.

Pure folklore.

Lame.

As time has a way of doing, it one day carved the trails carrying the synapses between my brain centers deep enough for me to venture forth and check this theory for myself.

I quickly discovered that sassafras tea, among other health benefits, is recognized as a natural anticoagulant.

Anticoagulant = blood thinner. Blood thinner keeps the blood flowing easier through the heart muscles.

Hmm.

Fancy that!

Have you ever noticed how much smarter everyone becomes after our teen years?

Alas, usage of sassafras tree byproducts, including sassafras tea, has become controversial, which is why it isn’t the main ingredient in root beer anymore. But, just as in the case of anything in this world, a person has to personally measure benefits against possible side effects. 

Unfortunately, most studies involving any natural health and medicine remedies seem to involve extra stringent, and * in my personal opinion* sometimes prejudicial testing. 

Honestly, who of us would imbibe or inject the quantities lab animals are subjected to? And why the heck are they doing that anyway?

Those who cling to their gut instincts and rely on the history of the mighty sassafras tree still trust that the ground sassafras leaves that make up filé powder for certain types of gumbo can’t be wrong. In fact, that powder is considered a main ingredient in authentic Creole cooking.

Personally, I have no fear of sensible consumption of sassafras tea every Spring. I witnessed my granddad use it for decades, and he administered it to all of his eleven children, as well as to his literal MOB of grandkids. 

The very best argument in favor of sassafras tea might be Thomas Elmer himself. 

He lived well into his eighties with no medicines or prescriptions other than the natural remedies he learned from the Five Civilized Tribes.

He hand-delivered at home all of his eleven children, survived total economic depression with nothing but his two hands to make a living, and played a mean banjo and fiddle with no lessons.

During a particularly harsh economy, he walked and hitchhiked ten miles each way to earn a dollar a day digging ditches and building outside toilets for the WPA. He once managed a farm with hundreds of hogs. He farmed, he picked, he gathered, he tended, he worked at anything and everything to support his loved ones.

Looking at his example, and believe me, he drank that tea every Spring, maybe he was right after all!

You think?

Have you ever tasted sassafras tea?

Did you know sassafras root was, at one time, the main flavoring in root beer? People actually called it the root-beer tree.

Did your family use any old-timey medicines that didn’t come from a pharmacy?

As usual, I love to hear from you!

BlackberryRoad is published by Sundown Press and is available on Amazon.

Trouble sneaks in one hot Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a Black man that Biddy *a sharecropper’s daughter* knows is innocent. Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair, and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.

The Accidental Road, Sundown Press, debuts September 2019.

A teen and her mom escaping an abusive husband tumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Stranded hundreds of miles from their planned destination of Las Vegas, they land in a dusty town full of ghosts and tales, treachery and corruption. Avoiding disaster is tricky, especially as it leads Kat into a fevered quest for things as simple as home and trust. Danger lurks everywhere, leading her to wonder if she and her mother really did take The Accidental Road of life, or if it’s the exact right road to all they ever hoped for.

   

Jodi Lea Stewart was born in Texas to an "Okie" mom and a Texan dad. Her younger years were spent in Texas and Oklahoma; hence, she knows all about biscuits and gravy, blackberry picking, chiggers, and snipe hunting. At the age of eight, she moved to a vast cattle ranch in the White Mountains of Arizona. As a teen, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she DIDN'T want to do with her life. Since then, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional Western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. 

She is the author of a contemporary trilogy set in the Navajo Nation, as well as two historical novels. Her current novel, Blackberry Road, is available on Amazon. Her next historical novel, The Accidental Road, debuts in September 2019. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, her delightful 90+-year-old mother, a crazy Standard poodle named Jazz, one rescue cat, and numerous gigantic, bossy houseplants.