Oral History Interview with Martha Canada & NatelMeadors

MARTHA CANADA: I had a hard life with them. I didn't take them to the doctor’s cause, I couldn't afford it but, if one got real[ly] bad off, I had to take him but, the rest of the time, I doctored them myself with my mother’s teaching and what I learned through her. I learned to take care of my children, as I said, he had yellow jaundice. My oldest one, when he was born, he had yellow jaundice. We used cotton seed tea and give [gave] him that to clear that up. Whenever he took the bow (??) hives, he screamed till you couldn't get him stopped. We fried up canfer, [confier??] lard and greased him in it and run [ran] a straw in a turpentine bottle, run [ran] through breastmilk and give [gave] it to him and it would pop them [those] hives out. When they had the whooping cough, three of them did. Some people just called them bums, but we just called him a man--a traveling, cause we weren't allowed to call him a bum. He stopped at our house and wanted breakfast and the kids were whooping. He told us, “if you do what we tell you,” said, "you'll get rid of that whooping cough.” He said to take a slipper [sliver of an] Elam tree on the north side and make them a cough syrup. Mommy said, "that won't hurt him if it don't [doesn’t] help them, it won’t hurt them.” So, he went to the tree and stripped some bark and mommy boiled it up and we give it to them [those] kids, that was the end of the whooping cough.

JUNE MYERS: Did you breastfeed?

MARTHA CANADA: I breastfed every child. I had I had to take one of my daughters off of the breast cause she was allergenic to all milk. I fed her with rice soup and when you have to feed one that way, you[‘ve] got a problem to raise it. She took these like pin worms. She was seem[ingly] like eat[en] up with them. Well, what we done [did] for that, we give [gave] her popular bark tea and pansy (??). My Kids, some of them had asthma. I got wild cherry bark and these young sprouts that come [came] out on peach trees, nine of them, and boiled it up and made them some cough syrup for the asthma. Well, I done [did] all that and I couldn't find that when youngest boy had it, he had it something awful. I got the neighbors to come in and pray for him and they come [came] three times to pray for that kid and the last time they come [came] they said, "there was doubt there [that] they could feed it.” Earl spoke up and said, "I guess it's me,” and when he come [came to] pray, that kid from this day had—had never had another spell. I said that the Lord healed him.

JUNE MYERS: Did you ever have a day when you thought you just couldn't make it? Like when the Kids got on your nerves?

MARTHA CANADA: Oh yes, had a many--of days like that, but I over corned [overcame] mine by looking towards the Lord.

JUNE MYERS: You have eleven Kids?

MARTHA CANADA: I had eleven kids. I've got three dead out of eleven. I've got eight living.

JUNE MYERS: Did any of them die when they were born or just recently?

MARTHA CANADA: I[‘ve] got one that was born in Jellico Hospital, it lived for two hours and 15 minutes. There wasn't no [any] blood go to its heart and the other one had the same symptoms. I had a midwife with it, it lived twenty-four hours. My first little boy that died, he had what the old people call members croup, [if] you didn't break [it] in twenty-four hours. Well, my husband was wanting to get him to the doctor. Well, I run [ran] and run [ran] that night to get him to the doctor, but [by] the time we got him to the doctor, he was too late. He was two years, six months, and sixteen days old. I went through a lot of hard days. I went through days when I didn't know where the next mess (??) was going to come from my children. He didn't have no [any] work, but we managed. We didn't have much, but we didn't go hungry.

JUNE MYERS: How long did you usually breastfeed them?

MARTHA CANADA: I fed mine a whole twelve months and my last one, I breastfed her till

she was two years old.

JUNE MYERS: Did you have any certain way in weaning your babies?

MARTHA CANADA: I would go by the signs in the knees and the door I traveled in and out so much. I sat down in that doorway, when I started to wean them, I would nurse their belly full, then I got up and didn’t give it to them no [any]more. My mother teached [taught] me that. My first one, I didn't do that. I liked [was likely] to never got him weaned, he cried all the time. If you don't wean them when the signs are right, most of them will suck on their thumb or their cup. Mommy had to wean me, because she had ulcers and she had to wean me early, she couldn't wait for the signs. Because when she would nurse me, she would notice blood on my mouth. So, she just took me off of it, and I sucked on that old tin cup for a long time.

JUNE MYERS: Do you remember at what age you started feeding them solid foods?

A: When they was [were] a month old. About the time I would get ready to eat, they would want to eat too. So, I would dip into the egg with my finger and put it in their mouth. I made my own baby food. I would make mine up and strain it what I wanted them to have. I learned if you feed them cabbage soup when they’re little that they usually don't come out worming.

JUNE MYERS: Did yous [you] all eat together?

MARTHA CANADA: Yeah, most of the time, only like if he was sick or something.

JUNE MYERS: Was [Were] there times when yous [you] didn't have much food?

MARTHA CANADA: We managed to have some food.

JUNE MYERS: Did you have to depend on a garden?

MARTHA CANADA: Yeah, I depended on my garden.

JUNE MYERS: Did any of your kids have the colic, diaper rash, diphtheria, colds, infections?

MARTHA CANADA: They had colds and the typhoid, but diaper rash was something I was never bothered with. I used cloth diapers. I took care of them in a way that it wouldn’t irritate their skin. I nevered [never] had no [any] problem[s] with my children being raw.

JUNE MYERS: Did your kids have toys, or did they make their own toys?

MARTHA CANADA: I made toys for my first, ones didn't have money to go buy them [toys].

JUNE MYERS: Did you have nursery rhymes, lullabies, songs to sing to them or did you [not] have time to do that?

MARTHA CANADA: No, but when I wou1d sit down to get them to sleep, I would sing to them. I couldn't find [time] to do the things I wanted to do, because I had quite a big family. It took my time up in my house, keeping their clothes clean. We had to carry water from the spring to wash with, washed with [a] tub and board.

JUNE MYERS: Did you make your own soap?

MARTHA CANADA: Yeah, [I] made my own soap a many--of a—times, I still do. When I get to wanting some homemade soap, I make it now, the cold-water soap they call it.

JUNE MYERS: How do you make that?

MARTHA CANADA: You put your lye into cold water, and you put whatever amount of grease you want, and you just beat that up real[ly] good and set it back, it gels. Then take you a knife and cut it up into blocks.

JUNE MYERS: Did you have cribs, playpens strollers, anything that they have today?

MARTHA CANADA: I sure didn't. I had to tie mine in little rocking chairs. had

a baby bed with my last child and it was one of them [those] that had the little iron rods.

JUNE MYERS: How did you potty train them?

MARTHA CANADA: The--most of them, when I took them out of the bed of [in] the morning, I took their diaper off of them and helped them, they learned from that, and they weren't hard to potty train when they got to walking.

JUNE MYERS: Did you have help if you had a baby at home?

MARTHA CANADA: No, me and my husband I raised my family, never had a babysitter.

JUNE MYERS: Can you remember any more home remedies?

MARTHA CANADA: Well, my mother made us home remedies. We wasn't [weren’t] took [taken] to the doctors [doctor] unless something got [went] bad[ly] wrong. She would get out and gather the herbs. She would gather boneseth (??) and willor [willow] switches. White walnut, if we got constipated, she would get the bark from a white walnut tree, make it into tea leaves and give [it to] us. People think these rag weeds are [not] good for nothing [anything], but that rag weed is good for--get the rag weed and mash it up, squeeze the juice out of it and give it to anybody with pneumonia fever and it breaks the fever. My husband was operated on and took [got] pneumonia. He'd been to the doctor and everything, and I went out and got that, give [gave] it to him and less than three hours [later], that fever was gone.

JUNE MYERS: Can you remember your kids between the age one to five, any particular

thing they played with, anything they might have done when they was [were] little?

MARTHA CANADA: My kids, mostly, if they even had a toy, they would rather get them[selves and [an] and old stick and can, as far as the boys went. They nevered [never] played with toys too much. I use[d] to tell my husband, what was the need to buy them if they didn't play with them.