Family Remedies and Memories of Childhood Illness

Bob and I caught ringworm during an epidemic created when the GI’s brought it back from South Pacific after W.W.II. Some kids permanently lost their hair to X-ray treatments given at an Iowa City clinic. Dr. Louis Arp tweezed off our ringworm scabs, which fluoresced under black ultraviolet light, and applied a blue salve weekly. Dad tried every fungal salve of the day and came up with his own cure in “Kerodin,” an athlete’s foot medicine. This became the standard treatment as soon as doctors Louis and Henry Arp heard about Daddy’s success in curing Bob and me. Daddy suffered from permanently stinky feet until he killed his own fungus with “Spiro Powder,” much to everyone’s delight. Daddy had malaria, which came and went. I remember how much he suffered from one bad bout. He took quinine pills for it. He would be sweating so bad the blankets would get wet and yet he’d say he was freezing with the fever. It was awful. We were warned that “Night Air” was the cause. I guess they didn’t know about the anopheles mosquito, yet. Gramps had rheumatism—he sometimes called it lumbago—that acted up in damp weather. “It’s going to rain. My rheumatiz is acting up,” he’d say. I cannot remember ever being sick as a child. Later, Mom told me that she thought Iris and I were the strongest kids because we were never ever sick. She also told me that when we were very young, and Bob came down with whooping cough, she made him spit in all our mouths to make sure we’d all get it at the same time so she wouldn’t have sick kids—one after the other—all summer long. Everyone caught it but me, but I got quarantined to the house all the same. I do remember having measles, and chicken pox, however. I guess Mom didn’t count these as being sick. Dad told us that, when he was a kid, they pulled out teeth by tying one end of a string to the tooth and the other to a door knob. Then, someone opened the door and the tooth was yanked out. It was probably just a Daddy story but he threatened to do it to us on occasion. I had a tooth out with gas, once, when I was twelve. As I went under, I saw a spinning blue merry-go-round floating over a deep blue lake. I can still remember it. It disturbed me at the time because I thought the merry-go-round would always be in my brain. I was right. It’s still there. When the other kids lined up to have their tonsils out—all on the same day—I was too busy with school activities, or so I said. I was really afraid of the ether because of my wild experience with the gas. I finally had my own out the day before Kennedy was shot. I was at home sitting on my sofa eating potato chips (can you imagine salty chips a day after throat surgery?) when Walter Cronkite came on with the news the president had been shot. Do you remember where you were? On at least three occasions, Mom ran the sewing machine needle through her index finger. She said that if she did it five times she was going to give up sewing. Odd that she’d allow herself to anticipate doing it twice more. I still cringe to my toes thinking about those accidents. Mom’s whole sunburned back skin pulled off in one piece after a long day at Rock River. She never, ever sunbathed again. Carol told me I would scream at the sight of blood, but I am in no way squeamish today. Give me gore, I don’t care. Think she’s wrong about that. I was bitten on the lip by a dog (to whom I would not give his stick) at an age too early to remember, but the scar is still there. I can’t remember which, but one of the girls (I think Carol) had scarlet fever, which was a most serious illness. But she got well. We all believe we won’t get cancer because of all those fresh and home-canned vegetables we ate as kids. Maybe we’re right. Once Mom had a very painful bursitis in her shoulder and Dad made her tough it out by sitting in a rocking chair. It was unbearable to watch our mother suffer and I didn’t like Dad doing that at all. I so prayed that Diana’s leg would get well. I loved her so and thought she was so brave to stand the pain. The thought that she would lose her leg disturbed me so much I prayed to God every night to fix it. Diana’s illness broke my heart. I think it broke Mom’s and Dad’s and everyone’s heart. It was the worst thing that ever happened to our family. But Diana sure turned out good, anyway. Her little girl courage (and that ever smiling little face) made this family tragedy bearable. We owe her.