Cape Breton's Magazine

How We Cured Ourselves Mary Frickert and her granddaughter, Emily Seymour; Emily Seymour today at her home at Neil's Harbour; and Helen Martin of Membertou Emily Seymour, Neil's Harbour: My grandmother, she was 97 when she died, and she nursed everything. There was four years there was no doctor. The nearest doctor was at Baddeck. And she nursed everything. Nursed people that had babies. She brought I don't know how many babies in the world herself and no doctor, no trained nurse. She never lost a mother. She lost a few babies but she never lost a mother. Her name was Mary Frickert. Granny Frickert. She was one of them that always had things on hand. She was awful smart and she'd go to the stores in town and go to the drug store and she knew what she wanted. "She'd go to the woods and she'd get a bud called Balm o' Gilead • and she'd make ointment of that, she'd boil the buds. Now when they'd kill a pig in the fall she'd take the inside lining without a bit of salt or anything, ren? der that out and she'd put it in a clean jar and she'd make ointment of that, I'll tell you the most thing you used to use for disinfection was carbolic acid. You used that for washing sores, anything. Her mother was a nurse in Newfoundland • not a nurse but, you know • and I guess she learned from her mother. And from that she con? tinued it. It was a gift. It was something that was in herself. She learned from one thing to another. She didn't have any education. It was in my days. It was as far back as I can remember • 70 years anyway. 1903? Oh yes, she was a nurse before that. My mother was sick for years and she nursed her all through her sickness. And she was right good through to the end and she was right there when people'd be dying. She'd know what to do for them and how to give them drinks. And she'd have things if they couldn't help theirselves • something like a little teapot but no cover • she'd put their soup or drinks or anything in that. She'd know just how to do it. Put the bib to their mouth and feed them slowly. She was awful gentle and kind. Everything was prayer with her. If she went to a bedside where a mother was going to have a ba? by, the first thing she did was kneel down, ask God to help her and help the mother. She lived up there, a big yellow house, you might see it going up • on the main road, up on the hill. They'd send for her day and night. When she used to go oi maternity cases, well first she used to get five dollars, then she got ten but she never got Cape Breton's Magazine/18