When we were growing up, on Old Marion Road, we had that high bank of red clay between our houses. The one in front of our house was a favorite among the blacks. Mom and Dad always told us to be on guard, because they would dig a hole the size of a #2 washtub and "Harvest" out a sack full of white bars of clay. They would have dug this bank all the way back to our house if we had not kept them run off. We asked them what they were doing, but we never got a straight answer. One person told us it was soap, and a bar of it did look like a bar of Ivory, so we believed them. One day Judd and Agnes Potis came by. They were the sweetest black family, and they had a son named Amos, who was crippled. Agnes told me to taste it, which I did, and it tasted like Milk Of Magnesia. Then she explained to us that they used this bar of stuff for several home remedies.
She said they soaked their potatoes in for some reason, they made a gravy out of it, and they used it for stomach ailments.
Since then I have looked up this clay to see what it was and discovered it is KAOLIN, which includes the minerals, Phosphorus, Potassium, Magnesium, Copper, Zinc, Manganese, and Iron.
Kaopectate is made from this common clay that is harvested in Mississippi and Alabama, and it was used for diarrhea, intestional spasms, and irritable bowel syndrome.
If my Mother had known this when we were little, she would have had us eating dirt.
In Celebration of MHS Class of 1958
Monday, February 23, 2009
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