Caldwell County MO Archives History .....HOME MADE FOODS AND CLOTHES IN DAVIESS COUNTY  
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:05 pm

HOME MADE FOODS AND CLOTHES IN DAVIESS COUNTY IN THE SIXTIES
	Narrator:  Mrs. Ursula Brookshire

     Mrs. Brookshire is now in her eighty second year, so she knows much of 
these things.  She gives several new things which other narrators have not 
told.
     Making chewing gum.  The Drake family had a son in the Civil War who did 
not chew tobacco, but wrote home for something to chew on while in camp.   
     They had a family recipe for chew gum.  They took the gum from pine trees 
and boiled it for about an hour with butter and a little sweetening for the 
taste.  Then they pulled it out in long sticks and let it cool.  It made a 
yellow color.  They sent him a good supply.  Every one chewed it in their 
home, men and women.
     Candy Substitute.  They did not need to make candy or buy it, for they 
always laid up a good supply of maple sugar for eating.  They had a small 
maple sugar camp on their place, just big enough for home consumption, not for 
sale.  They gathered the juice from the trees, of course, in cold weather then 
boiled it down in kettles.  Then they would take a spoon and sprinkle it over 
pans of snow to harden it.  My!  Wasn't it good!  Some folks poured the syrup 
out in little dishes to give it a nice form.
     They ate wheat cakes which were raised overnight, but did not have 
buckwheat cakes, because the father raised no buckwheat.  People ate largely 
what they raised on the place.
     They did buy some sugar, there was a dark brown sugar which was called 
Muscavator sugar, which they bought.
     The Drake family had a small flax field for home use.  Its yield gave 
them hemp and flax.  First the children would gather the flax stalks and lay 
them on the ground.  When the bottom of the flax stalks would begin to rot by 
contact with the ground, it was a sign they were ready to work.  They took it 
and pounded it with a mortor hammer till flat, then took it to a heckler, a 
board with nails in it, and ran the flax through it to remove the rough parts, 
then through a still finer heckler, for a further cleaner.  The next to the 
last time through these hecklers gave what was called hemp, and this was saved 
for spinning into towels and tablecloths.  The finest make the flax from which 
sheets and some clothing were made.  Mrs. Brookshire, in common with all the 
girls of her family could sit at the flax wheel and do her number of hours per 
day.
     Interview  August 20, 1935.


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