.. .on Measuring For Coffins Robert Johnson tells the

.on

Measuring For

Coffins

Robert Johnson tells the story of his grandfather who was a coffin maker. He lived high up on the mountain in what is now the park and mentioned that his aunts would know when someone had died as they watched a person appear with a long stick in their hand. The length of the stick would indicate the heighth of the deceased and somewhere on the stick would be a notch indicating the width of the shoulders, that being the broadest part of the body.

Mr. Johnson’s grandfather would then make a coffin to fit these dimensions. ‘Caskets’ were rectangular boxes, coffins were made to measure and tapered at the head and feet from the wide shoulder measurements. Mr. Johnson’s aunts would then line the coffin with satin.

... on

Dr. Amiss

Frances Thornton said that Dr. Amiss, who practied in Sperryville had a favorite saying about turkeys: “A turkey is a very inconvenient size bird — too big for one and too small for two. ”

He was an enormous man.

• •. on

Mountain

Remedies

The country doctor had to be a pharmacist as well as a medical doctor, as few country people could make a special trip to a drug store. Doctors were called upon by major drug suppliers and ordered what they needed each month from a nearby city.

Pills and potions were kept in the doctor’s bag - with the name of the chemical or with the name of the ailment for which it would be prescribed. When Doctor Amiss practiced, around the time of the Civil War, he earned a small black case with many glass vials: two for strychnine, both powdered and in tablet form, one for calomel, one for digitalin, one for anodyne (for infants), one for podophyllin.

In a larger case, Dr. Amiss carried pills and powders sorted by ailment: for headache, for bowels, for bad liver, for kidneys, for stomach, for constipation, for gas, for malaria, for indigestion.