African-American Contributions in St. Mary's County UNIFIED COMMITTEE FOR
AFRO-AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS
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Lexington Park, Maryland 20653

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Everlyn Holland - graduation photo 1953



Everlyn Holland

. . . providing health care, there wasn't really a lot you did. A lot of remedies, a lot of things that my grandmother used to do.

She, when children had something, she called-- if they had a cold or chest cold, she would put mutton tallow-–and it was rendered sheep fat. She would put that on their chest, and she would put a flannel cloth on your chest. Those type of things. And, she would give you some remedy, something that came in a bottle. We took [chuckle], also, a lot of cod liver oil. My mother believed in that and we had to take that cod liver oil. In fact, we took it every day. They used to come in little capsules. First it was in a bottle and then there were capsules. So, [they] gave you that to take.

But other than that, if you got a cut on your leg or whatever, some break in your skin, it was washed and it was cleaned and you put a clean cloth on it. And if you were bleeding, one of my father's relatives, he used to say, "Put tobacco on it" and they would put–-fold tobacco and put that on to stop the bleeding, and that's essentially what happened.

Of course, when you had–children were delivered, you had a midwife. And, the midwife came to your house, delivered the baby, took care of the baby and mother for a certain length of time and then she would, you know, she would leave; and, that's how those things were taken care of.

 

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