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My paternal Great Grandmother, Eliza Jane Gore, had an aunt, Nancy “Granny” Gore who was a Medicine Woman. After 25 years of research, I finally found some of her family written up in a little pamphlet, “Granny Gore’s Ozark Folk Medicine by Sherman Lee Pompey. It is housed in the Springfield Missouri Library in the rare book room MR 6155.83 P.
Everyone called Nancy “Granny” and so will I. However, no one knows her maiden NA name. She was a full-blooded Cherokee from Tennessee and this little pamphlet has some of her passed down remedies which were no doubt from Cherokee origins. When my Great Grandmother’s mother died, Granny raised Eliza Jane at Owen’s Bend, Missouri. I thought some might be interested in some of Granny’s Cherokee Medicine:
Yellow Pecuyne (Goldenseal) – Stomach Ache
Dried Powder and Linings of chicken gizzards (Ingluvin) – Bad Stomach Ache
Wahoo Tea – Body Chills
Skunk Oil, Mutton Tallow, Goose Grease & Turpentine – Applied to rags and placed on the chest for a cold or bad cough.
Bloodroot – To stop bleeding at child birth.
Wild Cherry Bark – Boiled down to drink to stop cough.
Horehound – For worms.
Button Snake Root Tea – For colic.
Catnip Tea – For sore neck.
Skillet Bark Tea – For Heart Ailments
Oat Tea – For Measles to prevent severe rash.
Flax Seed Poltice – For Boils
Artichoke Tea – Babies with Summer Complaint.
Sienna Leaves and Catnip – For laxatives.
Ginseng Tea – Stomach Cramps
Mare Water – Warts and Pimples
Yellow Root – Canker Sores
Elderberries – Longevity or to live long.
Sassafras Tea – Thins the blood.
Tablespoon of sulphur, 5 tablespoons of sorgum & a pint of peach brandy – More modern cough syrup.
Black Pepper or Cobwebs – Stops bleeding on a cut.
Raw Irish Potatoe (mashed) – Placed on splinters – wood or glass – To draw out foreign object from skin.
Pith from Goose Quills – Kidney Troubles
Pyorrhea of the Gums – Burn a red corn cob to cinders. Cool and rub on gums.
Onion Wrap – Bee or wasp sting. (This is my remedy – cut a piece of onion and make crisscross cuts in the fleshy side. Put on sting immediately and tape leaving it eight hours. This takes the poison out and stops the swelling – it works)
Various other Teas for various other symptoms – Penrod Tea, Smartweed Tea, Red Picuynme, Slippery Elm Bark Tea, Gingseng Tea.
Here’s a story in the book about Skillet Bark Tea. A Dr. Lloyd with a medical license had a newborn baby that was born a blue baby with lack of oxygen. He had given up on saving the baby. Granny told him he should use some Skillet Bark Tea. He didn’t know what it was but allowed her to administer a few drops to the baby. When they got up the next morning, the baby had color and was healthy. Dr. Lloyd took some of the Skillet Bark Tea back to his lab and tested its contents. He found is was cortasone – a mild heart stimulent.
And finally in the words of Granny herself, “You see, the good Lord made herbs an’ roots for the purpose of medicines. A lot of medicines that we used in the early hills was nothing more than the same thing or the artificial substitute of these things used today by modern medical science.”
Granny Gore died at the age of 96 in 1917. She was buried in the Old Philiburt Cemetery but when the Table Rock Dam was filled her remains were moved up to the Cemetery across from the Kimlerling City Chamber of Commerce and her marker was no longer there.
We located her grave through the grave relocation project and placed a marker on it for Granny. Will send a picture.
This has been a long one but covers a lot of the old medicines and remedies of the Cherokees.
Clydene
Clydene,
Hi. My name is Christie Hill. I currently live in VA, having moved here from TX. I grew up in OK. My father lucked on to your posting. I don’t honestly know how he found it because we have spent years looking for my great-grandmother, his paternal grandmother known only to us as Eliza Gore. The only other thing we knew was that she was full Cherokee and we we had been told she was ‘white Cherokee’. We found the record of her marrying my greatgrandfather, Benjamin Franklin Hill in Stone County MO, so we know that there were roots in MO, but other than that, there was limited otehr information… We can find no other information on my great-grandfather…absolutely nothing… I am so excited about this finding about my great-grandmother. I cannot believe it! I am in hopes of finding someone who might know something about my great-grandfather…
Oh my gosh! We are very close 1/2 cousins with the same great grandmother. When did Elizah Jane Gore marry your Benjamin Franklin Hill – do you know what year??? Something must have happened to him and then she married my John Hiram Williams and moved to Fannin Co., TX. My aunt passed a wonderful story about her trip from MO to TX as she knew her Grandmother well. We have lots of handed down stories about Elizah and would love to share them. You can only get so much on a web site. Getting ready to leave town but would love to hear from you.
Thanks to Saponitown for the great networking you provide.
Clydene wmscan@att.net
cinam1grl;35843 wrote: Clydene,
Hi. My name is Christie Hill. I currently live in VA, having moved here from TX. I grew up in OK. My father lucked on to your posting. I don’t honestly know how he found it because we have spent years looking for my great-grandmother, his paternal grandmother known only to us as Eliza Gore. The only other thing we knew was that she was full Cherokee and we we had been told she was ‘white Cherokee’. We found the record of her marrying my greatgrandfather, Benjamin Franklin Hill in Stone County MO, so we know that there were roots in MO, but other than that, there was limited otehr information… We can find no other information on my great-grandfather…absolutely nothing… I am so excited about this finding about my great-grandmother. I cannot believe it! I am in hopes of finding someone who might know something about my great-grandfather…
Christie – – – – contact me——-fredclydene@aol.com. I think Benjamin Franklin Hill was killed in the Civ. War??? Have you found anything else. That part of Stone Co. was really rough during the Civ. War. Granny Gore’s father Wm. “Tipton” Gore was forced to fight for both sides to keep his family in tact and they were practically starving at the time. That’s what makes me thing your Benj. F. Hill may have perished.
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