A Snake Oil Salesman?

Posted by Kelly on December 23, 2010 in Life | 6 comments

A member of my extended family was a part of a group of folks who gathered the history and stories of a few small communities in Southwestern Tennessee into a book and published it this Fall. I received a notice last August that the book was being published, but it was pricey and I hesitated.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, because family tree stuff is truly boring unless it is your tree, but one of my hobbies is collecting family tree connections and research. So I was really curious about this book.

I was surprised and grateful to receive the book in the mail a few days ago. A gift from my parents who thought that we might enjoy it. They were right. After Starr spent about an hour pouring over it, I was finally able to give it a look though and in addition to new dates, facts and photos, there are personal stories which are a lot of fun! What a treat!

I might have mentioned in the past that my great-grandfather (Oscar) used to travel around curing cancer, skin cancer in particular. To do this, he left his wife alone most of the time to run the farm and care for their 7 children. He is also rumored to have had a second family out there somewhere, but I have found no proof of this. He called himself a Cancer Doctor, though he didn’t have any kind of medical degree. He, along with his father (John), developed a “cure” regimen after John suffered from a cancer that ate away part of his left cheek.

I knew that Oscar did this, but now I know more of the story, as he wrote it in approximately 1933. Thankfully someone saved it. They also saved this pamphlet, which includes testimonials. The names of some of the testifiers are familiar, I will have to pull out my family tree files and see if they match.

I am thrilled with this gift, the stories and the history that it contains. Which reminds me, I have a story that Oscar wrote that I’ve been meaning to share. I just need to transcribe it.