Modern Hill Woman

Bacon makes everything better. Growing up, I don’t remember having a lot of salves, creams, or ointments in our arsenal of medicine. But we did have Vaseline, Vicks, sweet oil, flaxseed, tobacco, and bacon grease. Spider bite? Step on a nail? Put a hunk of raw bacon on it. Tick and chigger bites? Gnats buzzing? Use bacon grease.

My sister Juanita tells a story about my mom tending her garden on a day the gnats were terrible. Mom smeared bacon grease all over her face, when she came inside there were hundreds of gnats stuck to it. The kids were traumatized.

Vicks was a staple especially during cold season. When applied under your nose or on your forehead, its powerful camphor smell unclogged everything. For chest congestion a poultice was made by putting a thick amount on your torso and covering with a rag. My mom even ate it sometimes, but I don’t recommend that. 

In the medicine cabinet was an ancient tin of flaxseed that was only used for removing stuff from your eye. A single seed was placed in the afflicted eye and it created a white foam to float out the offending particle. 

Tobacco served a medicinal purpose. Mom and daddy didn’t smoke so a visiting smoker was sometimes handy. Chewed up tobacco applied to a sting, soothed pain and reduced swelling. If warmed sweet oil didn’t help, a smoker was enlisted to blow smoke into an aching ear to ease the pain. 

Vaseline was a cure-all for scrapes and cuts, but one day it proved to be a lifesaver. We were playing hide and seek and were told to stay away from the woodshed where my brother was working on the chainsaw. My then six-year-old sister Marylin decided that would be a good place to hide. When “Olly, Olly oxen free!”  was called she ran through the woodshed and tried to jump over the chainsaw. All of the kids ran screaming to the house telling what had happened. Once they got my sister inside mom scooped a big handful of Vaseline from the jar, shoved it in the cut, wrapped a rag around it, and hauled her down to Doniphan to see Doc Johnson. He stitched her leg up, Vaseline and all, a total of 36 stitches. He said if not for the Vaseline she would have either bled out or lost her leg.

Disclaimer: Try these remedies at your own risk. I do however stand by the statement “Bacon makes everything better.”