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[Cleaver] Sunday Afternoon Rocking (a mite late)
by List user
>From Jan, unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
Mullein and Wild Cherry. For me, the phrase has come to symbolize a lost
legacy, lost knowledge…and a bit of fear for a future without
Mullein and Wild Cherry. (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series)
My 90-year-old aunt bemoaned her bout of bronchitis, wishing for "some of
Mama's cough syrup!" When I inquired what cough syrup she spoke of, I
learned a bit of family history I had not known of before. It seems Mama
had quite a store of herbal medicine, and my aunt declared she had a remedy
for "most anything". The cough syrup was only one of many. The neighbors
would come knocking at her door most any time of the night asking for her
help. This was the first I had ever heard of my grandmother being an "herb
doctor", and I quickly realized that my elderly aunts never thought of
their mother in that manner. It was simply that "Mama knew how to do it",
and no title was applied to the keeper of the remedies.
Mullein and Wild Cherry. Mama knew how to do it…
Excited about this latest revelation, I asked just how it was that "Mama
did it". Alas and alack, the universal malady belonged to my aunts that
seems to affect us all, and we never seem to realize we have succumbed to
it until the hour is far too late to remedy it! They had never paid any
attention to "just how" Mama chose or prepared her home remedies. They did
not know just how Mama had come by the knowledge. The best they could do
was to describe something of the process behind that miraculous cough
syrup. Papa would go out to the woods and gather mullein, they said. He
would strip the bark of a wild cherry. Mama would cook the two things
together on an iron stove and bottle it to put away for the coming
winter. And that was the sum total of the knowledge of "Mama's Remedies"
passed on to her descendants!
Mullein and Wild Cherry. Lost…somewhere in a memory that paid no
attention to remembrance.
We all have a bit of that malady… I would be hard put to survive as my
grandparents did. Without a supermarket down the road, I fear my family
would soon run out of the few jars of canned green beans and homemade
jelly. (And by the way, I made neither. They were given me by members of
the generation before me, who cannot imagine "not putting up" at least some
of one's own food.) Without a modern vehicle, I doubt many of us would
have a clue how to survive in a world of limited transportation. We have
forgotten all about
Mullein and Wild Cherry. Time came folks thought they needed neither. And
that time was first my aunts' time, my father's time, and then my own.
I am a bit of an oddity in my time. I pride myself on my ability to "be a
hermit" with little inclination to dance attendance on the pleasures of the
world around. I cannot remember the last movie I saw, the last ball game I
observed, the last party I attended. I do not like to shop; I dislike
crowds and great gatherings. I tolerate social affairs only when attending
is a necessity. My idea of recreation is camping in a wilderness (albeit
with comforts carted into the wilderness with me), or tramping on a
well-worn path in the same (with hiking boots and canteen). I enjoy the
thought of "retiring so far back in the sticks they have to pump the
sunshine in". I am a bit of an oddity in a modern world, for little it has
to offer (beyond the comforts of it) appeals. Like some of my cousins, I
am a bit of a "throwback" to something that came earlier, to a time I may
in some ways have been more at home in. But fact is…
I know nothing of Mullein and Wild Cherry.
If I can't pick up my eggs in a Styrofoam container, if I can't stand over
the produce counter carefully choosing my "harvest", if I have no "wheels"
to take me to the same, or to a doctor, or to visit kindred far away….I am
not real sure how I would survive. Could I be given a plot of land and a
few rudimentary tools and survive? Doubtful. Maybe if I had the entire
"Foxfire" series, a Boy Scout troop nearby, many kind neighbors of a
generation before me, the luck of a riverboat gambler…maybe then. Maybe.
Mullein and wild cherry. Memory is not passed along with the genes that
carry the tilt of a chin or the sparkle of an eye. I have "forgotten" what
I never knew.
They survived in the very way I cannot, my grandparents. With no running
water, no electricity, no doctor for miles, no supermarkets, no ready made
clothing. With nothing but soil that could be coaxed if the weather
cooperated, with nothing but the sunshine and the rain, with nothing but
animals kept for practical purposes rather than as pets, with nothing but
rough and primitive tools. "Lord willing and creeks don't rise" was more
than well-used phraseology. It was a way of life. They did fine, near as
I can tell. Their children did not appear to feel inadequate in regard to
their upbringing. "We were all in the same boat," one of my aunts told me,
remembering "down home" on "China Knob". Yes, they did fine, near as I can
tell. Hard as it was, they kept themselves clean and their place
neat. They called it "having a little pride in yourself". They still found
time to smile and to laugh, to dream and to live. Sure. They did fine.
They had been taught by those who came before, and they knew all about
Mullein and Wild Cherry. For how many generations had the knowledge of
"how" been passed along…only to disappear in the generation before mine?
"We used to laugh when Mr. Tom came to town," an old-timer (who was a
"young whippersnapper" in those days) told me, "Joked that he could plow
all day and still come to town with nary a speck of dirt on his white
shirt!" Pa lived by the sweat of his brow, and worked with the rudest of
tools. He raised what his family ate, and he depended on the cooperation
of the weather and the Providence of his Lord to make that possible. He
never owned a car. He never turned a faucet to produce a stream of
water. He was a grandfather before he had a party line telephone (and then
only at the insistence of his grown children). He was over sixty years old
before he flipped a switch to turn on a light. I am not sure he did not
know that a person might be hard put to do his plowing and hitch up a wagon
to go to town…with "nary a speck of dirt on his white shirt".
Mullein and Wild Cherry. Papa, "Mr. Tom", knew how. I was not
listening. I was not asking. In my world…he saw no need to tell me…or did
he? When I was not listening?
"Oh, your grandma was most particular!", tells another old-timer who knew
the very proper lady I know only from photographs, "Most particular about
everything! Not a hair out of place! Always neat and tidy!" My
grandmother heated water in an iron kettle in the back yard to do her
washing. She made her own soap to do so, she scrubbed with roughened hands
on a washboard, and she made her own lotion to soothe the roughened hands.
She heated irons in the fireplace to smooth the wrinkles from the
cloth. She lived and raised five children in not much more space than my
own double garage.
Mullein and Wild Cherry. Not only does the thought of living as they did
make me very tired, but it is true that I would not know how.
Should all vestiges of living as we know it in today's world suddenly be
wiped away…could I survive? Doubtful…and certainly not in the style my
grandparents did. I am not sure how they managed to do so. I suspect I
would not be "neat and tidy" and I suspect I would not be "most
particular". I suspect I would be hard put to still find time to smile and
laugh and dream. I suspect I would be far more into grasping any semblance
of survival than "having a little pride in myself".
Mullein and Wild Cherry. I don't know how to blend the two to produce the
remedy. In my world there was no need to know. It is important to me now
to know…
How many hundred years had my family known how? For how many hundred years,
for how many generations had the knowledge been passed? For long enough
that a family learned not only to survive with nothing much more than the
resources they found on the land…but also to survive "having a little
pride" besides.
It is lost now…Mullein and Wild Cherry…
And what else was lost with it?
It is important to me now to know…but it is
Mullein and Wild Cherry.
And we forgot to remember.
Copyright ©2002JanPhilpot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be
shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.
Thanks, jan)
Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday
Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per
week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to
Sundayrocking-subscribe(a)topica.com
Comments about the content of these messages can be sent to
unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
17 years, 10 months
[Cleaver] Re: Richard, John and/or Sylvia Cleaver
by List user
This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/GEJ.2ACEB/137.1
Message Board Post:
I believe he died in Allen COUNTY, KS, not Allen, Lyon Co., KS. I checked our death records for Lyon Co., KS and he was not here. Hope this helps your research. As Info. I have an ancestor, Benjamin Cleaver, b 1751 MD, but migrated to KY, and may have died there.
Bill
17 years, 10 months
[Cleaver] Re: Harold Cleaver
by List user
This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/GEJ.2ACEB/111.123
Message Board Post:
Hi, I do believe we are connected. Percy Cleaver was my grandfather. Harold had a brother named Percy and also had two sisters named Alice and Elsie. Percy moved to Canada in the year 1910. He was a butcher there in Southwell, Nottingsham, England.
My grandmother, Pearl (Blanchard) who married Percy had left me with family tree notes and old photos of Percy and Harold. I do believe that the photo was Harold's wedding.
Please contact if you think we are connected.
17 years, 10 months
[Cleaver] Lucy Mae Cleaver
by List user
Searching for relatives to Lucy Mae Cleaver Cabarrus County, Concord, NC
married to John Edward Sloop
Nita in NC
17 years, 10 months
[Cleaver] "Sunday Afternoon Rocking"
by List user
>From Jan, unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
Singing the Last Song (From the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series)
It was not a good deal different from other books of its type. Carefully
pasted to its pages were newspaper clippings about graduation and plays,
parties and engagements. There were play bills and senior cards and a
Valentine's greeting. The school song was pasted to one page. And just as
carefully pasted to its pages were things that make sense to no one but
the teenager that saved them: a scrap of ribbon, a candy wrapper, a napkin,
a scrap of tissue paper, and the penciled name "Roger" on a torn yellowing
scrap of paper.
The class officers were listed and one page was filled with the names of
friends followed by the nickname their peers had attached to them:
Lorene-Pet
Neva-Dimples
Ethel-Cricket
Mary Alice-Flirt
Roy-Animal….hmmm, wonder what earned him that nickname? No explanation is
attached.
The leaves of little book were filled with scrawled notes from friends:
"Soon we will part. Please don't forget our good times, especially in the
library."
"Forget our quarrels but remember keeping speech in the dark and all our
good times. I wish you much happiness in life."
"We've been pals for five years, haven't we? Now we have to part but I
hope to see you very often, but if I do not, I'll always remember
you. Remember our last Sunday together!"
"It is only a short time until we will have to part never to be together
again as we are now."
"Only four more years and we will be separated, but that must not end our
friendship."
"Just four days and it will all be told. I have known you for four years
and I have considered you as a friend."
"We will soon have to separate but I hope we will meet again in future life."
Obviously it was the treasured momento of a teenager about to embark on the
world.
It might have been my daughter's senior yearbook of the late nineties. It
might have been my own from the early 70's. It might have been my mother's
of the early 1950's. It was none of those. It belonged to my aunt, and in
1928 she was a starry eyed hopeful young girl going out into the world with
the well wishes of friends carefully toted in a book under her arm.
And reading through the little book, looking through the cherished
memorabilia that only youth would consider so important, reading the scraps
of memories, it is easy to picture the lady I knew all of my life as "old"
as the young girl my daughter was, and the young girl I was myself
once. The book was seventy years older than my daughter's similar one, and
there are no glossy colored photos or even black and white ones, but it was
not so different. The personality of a young girl was stamped upon it. It
was the memory book of a hopeful teenager sadly bidding goodbye to
classmates, but with equal excitement looking forward to life. The class
motto? Up to the door, over the threshold, and into the world.
"May your school days not end with the close of this school but may you
ever go forward."
That classmate's wish came true. Her school days did not end, and she went
ever forward learning for many years, building a career.
Remember the good times we had in the year of 1926-27."
I think she must have done that very thing. Tucked in her photograph
albums were quite a number of yellowed photos crumbling about the edges,
and the photos were of classmates. One memorable photo shows a gang of
laughing young people piled on an ancient car. I had often wondered about
that photo, but oddly, had never thought to ask. I think this entry she
wrote in her yearbook must explain that photo: On Friday afternoon May 11,
the Junior Class took us (seniors) on a picnic to C. After the picnic we
went to E., had all kinds of car trouble but had a good time.
"I wish you much happiness and success"
How does one measure happiness and success? Aunt Helen appeared happy, and
she certainly had two faithful loving husbands who tried to create a happy
life for her. Success? She lived comfortably all of her life, if one
wishes to call that success. To my knowledge she never wished for one
material thing she did not have. She lived simply and seemed happy with
that. She never had children, but she was loved by her nieces, and she was
loved by her great nieces and nephews. She was part of a warm tightly-knit
family. She had a career she enjoyed, a church she was a part of, and
friends that remained devoted until her last day. She lived over ninety
years, and most of that time she was healthy and well. Yes, I think her
classmate's wish came true.
"The link that binds us class mates
Is unlinking chain by chain,
And it will have wholly severed,
Where we our last song shall sing"
In February, I hired a sitter to stay with her through the day. The sitter
told me one evening of the two of them spending much of the day singing old
hymns together. I was pleased, and wondered how long it had been since she
had sung a song, for she had been unable to get about for more than a
year. My aunt did not live but a week after the sitter came. And not long
ago, I realized that she had truly sung her last song in that week.
Up to the door, over the threshold, and into the world.
She was a starry eyed teenager once, anxiously closing the door on her
yesterdays and looking forward to a long happy future. Not so different
from my own youthful daughter, not so different from myself years
later. All of her classmates' good wishes for her life came true, and she
lived a long life, a happy life, a healthy life for the most part. And one
day she sang her last song, and anxiously closed the door on her
yesterdays, stepped up to the door, over the threshold and into another world.
I think if I looked back at my own senior book, I would see that all of my
classmates' good wishes for my life, though sometimes slow in evolving,
eventually came true. And though I have no idea if I will live the long
life she did, I have lived for much of it a happy one and a healthy one for
the most part. Perhaps my goal should be to sing….sing as if it is my last
song, for who knows at what time it might be? And then I can step up to
the door with no regrets, over the threshold with no regrets, and into
another world.
And perhaps the paraphrased words of the classmate, coupled with the motto
of the class of 1928 fairly well summarize what life is all about:
Where we our last song shall sing,
Let it be no different from that we have always sung,
Sing joyfully as if it is the last song,
Let it be every day upon the tongue,
And always be ready to step
Up to the door,
over the threshold,
and into the world.
Copyright ©2002JanPhilpot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be
shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.
Thanks, jan)
Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday
Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per
week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to
Sundayrocking-subscribe(a)topica.com
Comments about the content of these messages can be sent to
unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
17 years, 10 months
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