When I was small my Grandma Armstrong would head out for the woods. No one seemed to be interested in what she was doing but she was out hunting plants. She would return with roots and such and make medicines out of them. She knew what she was doing I guess because along with her home remedies she knew what to do for a sick child and for that matter anyone who was sick. The stuff seemed to work. At least folks said it did. I know my grandma loved me better than anyone (so I supposed) but sometimes I hated to go to Lula because once the hugging was over (or was that my physical she was doing?) she seemed to sense something was wrong with me. And I don’t care to hear you say, “Well we all knew that.”

I was talking to Gerald (my older and somewhat more wise brother) up in Wyoming the other day and we were speaking about our old age and aliments when he said “we should have paid attention when Grandma Julia went out to dig roots. We should have been taking notes.” He was so right. I had the same thoughts the other day as I stood by her grave out at Lula. Me, a Pharmacist and having no idea of what she knew. I remember once when I was pre-school age that grandma had noted that I wasn’t thriving like I should. “Worms” she said. “The boy needs a good worming.” When I respectfully declined (my right, heh?) I couldn’t imagine real live worms in my body. But she did.

I was rudely force-fed a large quantity of some of her potions, with a large quantity of castor oil in an orange juice vehicle. After I quickly threw it up, I was more or less declared the unappreciative family goat and shamed for my stomach’s lack of respect for my grandma’s concoction. But if I had worms, the worms survived—and my image in the family plunged. My brother Gerald always was faithful to remind me of my disgraceful moment.

It was very disruptive of that family when Grandma herself became ill. She doctored herself as best she could but finally a doctor at the Sugg Clinic in Ada gave her the bad news. She was well along with Uterine Cancer. Surgery did not help her, and she was sent home to Lula to die. It took a long time, but the Lord called her home one unhappy day in 1940. She had yet to hit 60 and her knowledge of medicine and roots and herbs went with her.

I really wouldn’t have given her potions and cures much thought except my brother Gerald, 3 years my senior, was always curious about what she knew. Like other family memories, if you don’t grab onto them when the time is ripe, they just get away from you. Of course, I wonder what grandma would have thought about this COVID-19. I doubt if she could do anything about it but her first husband, George Boyd died in the great Flu Pandemic in 1918. She then took her covey of little girls and retreated to Wichita Falls, Texas to be near her own mother in that time. She later returned to the Wister area and married my step-grandpa, W. W. Armstrong, and they begat even more kids.

I say this because I wonder if so much tragedy in her life may have motivated her to take what she knew about Early American Folk Medicine to heart and to take to the woods in search of so many remedies. For sure, the poor people of her time and place had little access to modern medicine as it existed in her time.

The only thing she may have said would be this: “You need to be in church Sunday.”

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com