Fables, Freckles And My Grandma Fox

My Grandma Fox's lifetime spanned many monumental changes in society, the sciences and technology. She was born on June 23, 1900 and passed away on December 22, 1983. She was almost three years old when Orville and Wilbur took the first airplane ride, nineteen years old when the 19th Amendment was passed, fifty-five when Salk introduced the polio vaccine, sixty-nine when man landed on the moon, and the year she passed - the video game "Mario Brothers" was introduced. Her lifetime began in the horse and buggy days and ended with the space shuttle flights! I am a very privileged person to have known her like I did!

Grandma Parzettie Roseanna Fox nee Callahan was industrious, tough, gentle, kind, funny and onery! Heavy on the onery! I have heard it said that "she would rather scare someone than to eat!" And I somehow believe it.

And I remember this story that she told...

When Grandma Fox was a young lady, she had lots of freckles on her nose and cheeks. From the way she told it, it wasn't just a few scattered here and there but a very liberal amount that God had blessed or (perhaps rather) cursed her with. It was a source of shame for her and she was determined to get rid of them.

Fables, home remedies and old wives-tales seem to flourish in the Ozark Hills and Grandma heard about a sure-fire way to get rid of all her freckles.

First, she was told to find some stump-water.

Now if all-ya'll don't know what stump-water is, maybe I can 'splain' it to you! Sometimes in a logging operation, a hollow tree will inadvertently get cut down and the stump, with the hollow part in the middle, collects rain water. Or, a healthy tree gets cut and as the stump decays, the middle rots out first, making a place for water to collect. I found a good picture of one on the Avantgardens Facebook page which is shown below.

The water collects bugs, mosquito larvae (wiggle tails), leaves and is usually brownish in color and doesn't have a very good smell.

After Grandma had found her stump-water, she proceeded to follow instructions.

She took some of the stump-water in her hands and rubbed it on the freckles. Yep! She took that dirty, stinky ole water and put it all over her nose and cheeks!

Then, she was supposed to rub her hands on the part of her body where she wanted to freckles to move to!

Well, Grandma chose the top of one of her thighs.

It wasn't supposed to happen immediately, but over the course of a few days or weeks, so the fable went, the freckles would leave her face and appear on her thigh.

And this is the rest of the story....

I know she is older in the picture above, but you will look in vain for a freckle on Grandma's face. And although this is slightly embarrassing to relate, the freckles did move. I distinctly remember her telling me this story and when she got to the point of saying that the freckles moved to her thigh, she exposed enough of the thigh for me to see a big patch of FRECKLES on the top of it!!!

So to all my "be-freckled" friends out there, THERE IS HOPE!!! It may seem somewhat quaint, but a Fable took care of the Freckles for my Grandma Fox!!!