Attending a book signing with a local author, Jo White, was one of the memorable things I have done this year. Her book, Sunbonnet Angels, Hitch Your Wagon to a Star, paints a vivid portrait of Texas from its Scotts-Irish roots until World War II.

THE AUTHOR

Oh, I forgot to mention. Ms. White is 104 years old. Yep, that’s right. Let me repeat. Years on this earth­—104. What makes this book really fun is that she has included special memories of growing up such as living in her grandmother’s house, the family farm, weddings, births, deaths, and religion as well as the history of her ancestors who fought for Texas Independence in 1836.

THE AUTHOR AND THE SNIPE HUNT

I found this vignette particularly funny because I went on a snipe hunt the first time our Girl Scout troop went camping. Here’s Jo’s experience.

Snipe Hunting

This was a favorite game for country cousins to play on their cousins who lived in towns and cities. When I was about nine years old, my family had already moved into Beeville, and I was visiting my boy cousins in the country. For two or three days, they had promised to take me snipe hunting, and they tried to make me think that it was the nicest thing anyone could do for me.

It was a very dark night that was finally selected. They gave me a sack with some bits of corn in it. They had their sacks, too. They told me that since I was a girl, they would let me stay in the (dirt) road near the house. They left me there and said that they would go off into the pasture to do their hunting. I was to stay quietly in the road with my sack open until a snipe (a rare bird) flew into it, at which time I was to close the sack and go back to the house.

I stayed in the road until the howling coyotes came closer, and I ran back to the house without my snipe. The boys were already there, laughing their heads off. When I finally caught on to the joke, I was furious with them and with myself, too, for having been so gullible to believe that a bird would have flown into my open sack.

***

 Amazingly enough, snipe hunting as described above has been around since the 1840s. Birds named snipes are real and can be hunted in Texas.

 THE AUTHOR AND FOLK REMEDIES

I just had to share a few of the more interesting remedies.

Severe Sunburn: Skim thick cream off the top of milk crock and rub over sunburned areas. It is immediately soothing. (That’s true.)

Sex: (This is not a home remedy, but is too good to leave out.) Some young ladies were not allowed to eat candy given to them by young men because their mothers were afraid the boys might give them a substance in the candy that would cause their sexual desires to be uncontrolled. My! My! What was it?

Shingles: Vinegar again! “Apply undiluted apple cider vinegar to the shingles, 4 times daily and 3 times during the night if awake. The itching and burning sensation will leave within a few minutes, and the shingles will heal readily.”

Warts: Here is real folklore-and seven remedies for warts. 

1. If you have a wart on your hand, hide the dishrag and the wart will disappear.
2. Prick the wart with a needle, place the blood on a piece of corn and feed the chickens.
3. Break the stem of milkweed, daub the wart with the whitish milk that oozes out of the stem for 2-3 days.
4. Steal a bacon rind and rub it on the wart, then bury the rind under a stone.
5. Pick up a small stone or pebble, rub the wart lightly with the side of the stone that was on the ground and place the stone back on the ground in the same position, same side down and the wart will leave, and you will not know when, where or whence.
6. Take a tater (potato) and rub on the wart and bury the tater. When tater rots, wart will be gone.
7. For seed warts and horny-headed warts on the other fellow, get him to count the warts, then take any kind of string, tie as many knots as he has warts, bury the string secretly when he is not looking. When the string rots, the warts will be gone.

  LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms. White learned to read at four and continues to pursue and work on what she finds interesting. The first edition of this book was published in 2004 when she was 80 years old; the second edition in 2011.

 What’s your excuse for not writing the great American novel or even your memoir?

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