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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 50/125

Growing up at the beginning of this century, we had all those dreaded childhood

diseases—the ones that simple vaccines prevent today such as measles and whooping cough.
Once I begged my mother to let me ask a girlfriend to spend the night with me, and
she finally relented. As soon as the girl walked into our house, my mother detected that she
had the seven-year itch—scabies. Sure enough, I got this contagious skin itch.

Ma used a home remedy on me, mixing sulfur in fried meat grease and rubbing it all
over my body. I then had to wear the same clothes for seven days. I couldn’t even take a
bath. Talk about odor! At the end of seven days I surely smelled ripe over-ripe rotten'!'

People killed their steers for beef, but a whole steer is a lot of meat. It was impossible
for one family to eat an entire steer before it spoiled, so four neighboring families would
form a “beef club.” Each family butchered a steer about once a month. Two families took the

front quarters and two families the hindquarters, then the next time the families switched
sections of the steer. Each family had a turn getting the /liver and tripe (stomach lining).

Each family got a hoof every time. Ma took the hoof, cleaned it, pried the hard part
away, and boiled it in the wash pot. The grease cooked out. When the water got cold, the
grease rose to the top of the water. She lifted the grease off and cut it up into oblong pieces
two or three inches thick. These pieces are called “tallow” and were used to make soap and

candles. In the winter, when our hands, lips, and1 cheeks got chapped, Ma held a piece of
tallow close to the fire to soften it then rubbed it onto’the chapped area. The skin on our

hands sometimes actually cracked open, but the tallow eased the pain and the sting. All the
expensive cosmetics on the market today were unheard of then.
Ma sliced off round steak, the meat located directly above the hind leg. She salted and
peppered the steak, hacked it with the edge of a saucer, covered it with flour and fried it. She

usually cooked rice to eat with steak, but if she didn’t have rice, she cooked grits. Ma had to
cook all of the beef one way or another to keep it from spoiling. I can still see those big pots

of stew beef Ma cooked. When the meat got real tender, she added peas, onions, tomatoes,
okra, potatoes, and com which we called “goulash.”
Eric’s mother cut lots of strips of the meat and dried it out in the sun for beef jerky.
Ma never dried any beef.

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