VIRTUAL BOOKS

Introduction to Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife

Introduction to Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife – Susan Roach – Susan Roach

Map: Cultural Micro-Regions of the Delta, Northeast Louisiana

Map: Cultural Micro-Regions of the Delta, Northeast Louisiana – H.F. Pete Gregory

Working in the Delta

Working in the Delta – Susan Roach
Nets and Net Making in the Delta – Sheila Richmond
"Willing to Take A Risk": The Folklore of Cropdusting – Susan Roach and Janet Ryland
Big River Traditions: Folklife on the Mississippi – Ben Sandmel
Delta Folks – Hunter And Fisherman Kenneth Hebert: "Love It More Than Anything" – Sylvia Frantom
Traditional Boats of Catahoula Lake – Dayna Bowker Lee
Reflections on the Delta – Traditional Boats in the Delta – H.F. Pete Gregory
The Rolling Store – John L. Doughty, Jr.
Delta Folks – Judge Alwine Louise Smith Ragland: Louisiana's First Woman Judge – Betty Jo Harris
Delta Folks – Ike Hamilton: From Rodeo Clown to Auctioneer Colonel – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Whitey Shockley: Mississippi River Fisherman – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Oren Russell: Mississippi River Boat Pilot – Susan Roach

Homemaking in the Delta

Making a Home in the Delta: Women and the Domestic Environment – Deborah Boykin
Delta Folks – Jelly Maker Maye Torrey: "Berries In The Winter" – Sylvia Frantom
Delta Folks –Hazel Dailey: "To Make Something Each Day That I Am Here" – Sylvia Frantom
Delta Folks – Helen Lyke: Passing On Family Traditions From Needlework To Stories – Sylvia Frantom
Delta Folks – Folk Medicine Remedies Of Virginia Roberts: "For Tummy Aches" – Sylvia Frantom
Reflections on the Delta – Christmas Customs – H.F. Pete Gregory
The Fabric of Family: Preserving the Parker Family's Quilting Heritage – Kerry Davis

Making Music in the Delta

At Play in the Delta, From Memphis to Natchez – Michael Luster
Delta Folks – Thomas Edison "Brownie" Ford: Cowboy, Storyteller, and Ballad Singer – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Po' Henry and Tookie: Delta Blues Duo – Susan Roach
Brownie Ford: Lifelines of a Woods Cowboy – Nicholas R. Spitzer
Since Ol' Gabriel's Time: Hezekiah and the Houserockers Liner Notes – David Evans
Delta Folks – Performer and Songwriter Kenny Bill Stinson: "Mixing Country Music with the Blues" – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Instrument Builder Hilton Lytle: "I've Always Worked with Wood" – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Vidalia's One-Man Band, Gray Montgomery: "Several Different Musicians Rolled into One."– Ben Sandmel
Delta Folks – Laymon Godwin: Pedal Steel and Dobro Master – Susan Roach

Telling Stories in the Delta

"The Big One": Deer Hunting in Northeast Louisiana – Janery Wylie
The Hub Lake Gold: An Analysis of A Legend – John L. Doughty, Jr.
Landmark of the Koroa – Sam Dickenson

Delta Archival Materials

Delta Archival Materials: An Inventory
Delta Folks

Virginia Roberts

Caldwell Parish

Virginia Roberts learned how to make medicinal folk remedies from her mother.

Folk Medicine Remedies Of Virginia Roberts: "For Tummy Aches"

By Sylvia Frantom

 

Virginia Roberts remembers her mother using medicinal folk remedies to treat her children's illnesses. She especially remembers her mother giving her children blackberry juice for stomach aches and putting tobacco on their insect stings. She learned to use fluxweed from her husband's family, and she also used it on her grandchildren. Virginia was born on April 3, 1936 in Clarks, Louisiana. She married Merlon Roberts, had four children and nine grandchildren, and lived in Grayson, Louisiana in 1994 at the time of her interview.

When Virginia Roberts was a child, her family would go out in the woods to pick wild blackberries. They made jelly and jam from some of the berries, and they canned some to be used to make cobblers. Her mother also canned the juice from the blackberries "strictly for medicinal purposes." Roberts explains the details of the canning and its use: "She didn't put any sugar in it. Anytime we complained of a stomach ache, we got a little glass of berry juice. And it helped really well." She reflects, "Anytime you said you had a tummy ache, from cramps to diarrhea, to maybe throwing up, vomiting, you got this blackberry juice." She gave the children "probably a fourth to a half a cup to begin with and then that much every so often, as long as we complained."

Another major remedy practiced by Roberts was the use of fluxweed to treat diarrhea. She learned to use the plant native to the Grayson area from her husband's father and grandfather. Virginia Roberts explains the treatment that she gave her children and her grandchildren when they were growing up:

There's a plant that grows wild in my area. My husband's father called it a fluxweed. It's similar to an old sawbriar. The leaves are similar and it runs. It's a running vine, similar to the sawbriar, but it does not have thorns on it. And it is fuzzy underneath the leaf. You can pick these leaves and put them in a bowl. Put boiling water over them. Put a lid on it and steep it for about 5 minutes. Give a tablespoon or so for diarrhea. About 2 doses and the diarrhea is gone. That's why it was called the fluxweed. My father in law had used it and his father, my husband's grandfather. And it really works.

Audio Player
There's a plant

According to Culpeper's Complete Herbal (1880) by English physician Nicolas Culpeper (1616-1654), fluxweed was used for stomach ailments and even has bone and sore healing properties. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Resources Conservation Service lists fluxweed Trichostema brachiatum, the native American species, as an endangered or threatened species in some states. It has small purple flowers and is found in sandy soil and along streams.

Virginia Roberts does not use all the remedies used by her family members. For example, her mother used tobacco to treat insect stings on her children. Virginia recalls her treatment: "She smoked and she would just chew some of the cigarettes and lay it on the stings. But I never did that to my grandchildren, but I do use the herbs." Virginia Roberts also uses popular herbs that she buys from the health food store.

Virginia Roberts treated her children and grandchildren with medicinal folk remedies that were handed down within her family. These included blackberry juice and fluxweed. She liked to use these folk remedies because they were safe and they really worked, especially for sick children.

Works Cited

Culpeper, Nicolas. Culpeper's Complete Herbal. London: Foulsham 1880.

Sylvia Frantom wrote this article as a part of the Delta Folklife Project in 1994 and she revised it in 2012 for Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife. She is a native of Louisiana with a heartfelt interest in Louisiana history and folklore.