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.
