Sentimental Sunday: Recipes/Receipts

 

Martha Sizemore Hardy. CDV ferrotype

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I have been meaning to do a blog post to include Martha Hardy's Cure for Dropsy and Salve Receipt ever since I first posted about it back in 2019 in this post entitled "Music Circles." 

 I see I posted that in the month of January and it is January now, albeit four years later. A lot has happened in that four years, but I'm happy to say I am still here and so is this receipt from the year 1883, one hundred and forty years later. Receipt, of course, is an old term for recipes. 

 At some point, I may also do a blog about the project I did for my sister with her mother-in-law's recipes. It remains one of my favorite creative endeavors and the project sparked my recall of the receipt in the first place. But let me not get distracted again. 

It was thirty-one years ago that I stumbled across this piece of paper with writing on both sides. I have told parts of the story before but not all the details. I did a quick blog post on the first of this new year musing on the fact that as we are scattered from our roots, these are not the times when people are sitting on the front porch talking about the ancestors and not the times when people are even living near those who might be talking about the ancestors. I concluded that we had to learn to listen for the ancestors ourselves and write down the stories they want told. This is a story I want told as a future ancestor who leaves it for those scattered people who may one day want to know. 

It was 1992. I could not forget the year, for it was the following year when my first daughter was born exactly one year after I miscarried. Taking some time off work for this loss that hit me deep, my husband and I took a quick trip from Florida to Kentucky to see my grandfather. While there, I found a folded piece of paper written on both sides and stuck in the corner of a bookshelf at my grandparents house. When I unfolded it, I discovered it was written by my grandmother's grandmother and was thrilled to find it. It led to another discovery equally thrilling that I explain in this blog post here, although I mistakenly said the recipe was written in 1885. The paper has an embossed stamp in the upper left corner with the word "HILL" surrounded by the words "PEARL MILLS." I assume this references a paper milling company that manufactured the paper itself but a quick google search does not shed any light on the matter. Martha would have been living in Christian County, Kentucky at the time she penned these. The first appears to be a recipe of her own for a medicinal salve used for "indolent sores." On the back is a "Cure for Dropsy" with a date of Dec. 5th 1884 at the top. Martha does not take credit for this but instead writes: "this was taken from the signs of the times" which I assume is the name of a magazine of some sort. Wikipedia has a reference to it as a weekly newspaper first published in 1874. I will leave the reader to research wahoo bark and Anna Hagan and also provide the medical disclaimer that this is written for educational and informational purposes only. 

A Salve Receipt 

In equal parts Mutton tallow 

beeswax Rosin Casteel soap 

white turpentine gum camphor 

put the first four [sic] articles in 

a vessel put on a fire let them 

get the Boiling point then shave up 

the soap and put it in then the 

turpentine then take the 

gum camphor disolve it by 

putting on a little alcohol 

at a time then let all come 

to the Boiling point and set 

it off of the fire then add 

the gum camphor after disolving 

as directed it is good for all 

indolent sores such as white 

swelling boils and fever sores 

Written by Martha S. Hardy March the 4, 1883. 

 

Cure for Dropsy Dec 5th[?] 1884 

Take of wahoo the bark 

of the roots, two ounces 

and pour upon it one quart 

of boiling water and let it stand 

in a covered vessel until 

cold and then drink 

this will operate on the bowels 

and after a few days the dropsy will be gone 

this wahoo can be procured at 

all most any large drug

 store in the country or city 

This was written by and 

old sister ninety years 

of age on the 19th day of October 1884 

Anna Hagan, Hunt, Johnson Co, Ark 

This was taken from the signs of the times 

by Martha S Hardy