Remedies We'd Rather Forget

Risking Life, Limb and a Digit

ONE DAY during my Minnesota childhood, we were trimming some limbs off a large tree with a double-edged ax. One of the higher limbs was hard to reach, so I climbed up a lower limb to get to it. I was hanging onto a tree limb with my left hand and chopping with the right when the ax struck the hand holding the limb and I nearly cut off my left index finger.

We managed to control the bleeding and made it to the house, where my mother took charge. After cleaning the wound, she soaked my hand in hot water with a few drops of carbolic acid, her favorite remedy for wounds. She then wrapped the dangling end of the finger very tightly and taped it together. Daily dressings and wrappings started the healing process, and the finger was saved.

I marvel at what my mother could do during the Depression with carbolic acid and hot water.

—Clyde Mitchell, Lake Placid, Florida

Onion Secret Now Peeled Away

ONION JUICE was my grandmother Mary Longen’s cure-all for her eight children’s colds and flu in Depression-era Gregory, South Dakota.

My father, Edmund, and his brothers recall the pervasive and nauseating smell of onions simmering on the stove throughout the winter. Though Ed eventually learned to like them, his older brother Bert vowed that no onion would ever pass his lips.

Years later, when we were all living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., my mother, Evelyn, dutifully made two bowls of stuffing at Thanksgiving and Christmas, one without onions for Bert.

But one year, she decided to put Bert’s taste buds to the test. She made her usual batch of sausage, apple and onion dressing, divided it in half, put it in two bowls and gave Bert the one that supposedly had no onions. Bert happily ate the stuffing, onions and all. Our glances and smirks across the table never gave away the deception.

This family secret has now been revealed here for the first time in more than 40 years.

—Monica Knudsen, Bethany, Oklahoma

Keep Your Eye On the Button

WHENEVER SOMEONE had something in an eye, my father used a pearl button to remove it. The button had to be perfectly smooth, and it worked like a charm. I once got sand in my eye, and the pearl button did the trick.

—Ellen Golinar, Highland Heights, Ohio

These remedies are shared for fun and are not recommended for use.