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Bear for Dinner
John M. told J. L. Crawford this bear tale and Mr. Crawford told it to me
March 12,1990. I have not heard it before. Since it was my family concerned
and the Cleveland area. I wrote it down for my children & grandchildren.
This is how it goes...Uncle John was just a boy he and his dad Water M. was
in the woods one day and their dog started looking at the ground and really
barking. John thought the dog gone crazy but then his dad told him it was
a bear. I don't see a bear John said. Then his dad cut a long sharp stick
and started punching it in the ground. He found a soft spot and the stick
went deep and punched the bear. Who was sleeping under ground in his winter
den. The bear woke up and came out in a bad mood. He was stiff from lying
still so long and he was extra fat. Uncle John was scared no doubt. The bear
was trying to get away. The dog was attracting him as Grandpa was whipping
him with his stick. I wish I knew what Uncle John was doing. They drove that
bear home and into the back yard. Which was not to far from where they found
him. Then Grandpa knocked him in the head with a poll ax. What fun they must
have had skinning him.
The rest of the story is mine. Try to imagine the joy and excitement of the
children. There was Tessie,John,Dallas,and Joe. They must have talked and
laughed as they ate bear steak for supper that night.
I can just see my Grandmother Julie that day giving each child a chore to
do as they quickly went to work cutting up the bear and salting it down to
cure and later smoking it. She always saved all of the oak ashes and put them
in a wooden barrel. When she had enough saved she would pour water over them
and stir them. They set for a few days and then she would strain this water
off the ashes. Then she would have her lye water for several things. After
the water was ready grandmother would then put her grease she been saving
in the wash pot and built a slow fire under it. Not to cook it to fast and
scorch it. When it was boiling nicely she would take this wooden paddle about
three feet long and gently pour in the lie water as she stirred. Now she would
cooked it most all day and about dark she raked the coals of fire away from
the pot and turned a washtub over it. Next morning she took a long knife and
cut out big bars of soap. This was used for washing clothes, scrubbing floors,
dishes, hair, baths, and also doctoring sores. After the clothes were washed
she took the soapy water and poured it on the greens in the garden to keep
the bugs off. That soap was good for lots of things. One time I stuck a splinter
in my foot so deep she could not get it out so she put a poltice of soap and
grease on it. The next day my foot was white under the poltice and splinter
came right out. Bear grease was used to waterproof leather shoes, boots, and
saddles. Any kind of tallow would do.
Grandmother was half Indian and she knew what all the herbs that grew around
Cleveland were good for. Feel sure she must have made some bear grease chaps
tick and sweet smelling hair oil.
About twenty or more years ago I took my grandchildren to the Indian Reservation.
There was this picket fence about six feet high around a model Indian village.
We pay to go in. It was like a trip back to my youth. The buildings were the
same as those I knew as a child. There was animals skins stretched over wooden
shingles to dry hanging on the walls. The foods they were demonstrating were
the same that we ate as a child. The toys and handcrafts very same kind I
play with here in east Texas between 1922-1930. We had two kinds of split
rail fences and picket fences right here up until the late 40's.
Kat March 12,1990
Kat on the far left, Brother Murphy, Grandmother Julie
(half Indian)
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