A Tribute to Sarah Ann
Sarah Ann is the owner of Wise Ways Emporium within my miniature world. In my real world, she is much more. Sarah Ann was my Great-Grandmother and her story is one of strength and independence during a time when those qualities were not desirable in women. She was also a wise woman........more commonly referred to as a witch.
The great-granddaughter of a Blackfoot Indian shaman, Sarah Ann had her share of adversity early in life. At that time and in that area, being of mixed blood may have been common enough, but it was not accepted. Sarah Ann's grandmother was the shaman's daughter and her mother, Barthena, was halfblood. Tensions ran high in society for all these women, not just because of their heritage, but because they were also wise women. Barthena was murdered by poisoning because of this. The townspeople refused to allow her body to be buried in a Christian cemetery and it was stolen from the morgue. My family has searched for her grave for over a century, but we've never found where she was buried. This probably has a lot to do with why we have our own family cemetery now.
Sarah Ann was a very handsome woman.........tall, and straight of back with high cheekbones, black hair and grey eyes. She met and married my great-grandfather in 1875. She was 18 at the time. Less than a year later, when she was pregnant with my grandfather, the law showed up at the door. They were sent by my great-grandfather's father-in-law to bring him home to his first wife. Needless to say, Sarah Ann was less than impressed with finding out her husband was a bigamist. He took off for parts unknown and my great-grandmother resumed her maiden name and was left to carry on by herself. My little tribute to this event is the caged frog upstairs in the Emporium. I think it would have been a fitting end for a foolish man who dared to piss off a witch.
Sarah Ann did indeed carry on and she did so in a glorious fashion, breaking most every rule for women of that time. She took work as a maid and began saving every penny toward a home for herself and her young son. When he was 4 years old, Sarah Ann had hopes of buying farmland on a northern ridge but was reluctant to pursue that dream because it would mean being separated from her son while she worked as a housekeeper to save the money. All her doubts were removed when she had a vision one night of a blackbird sitting on a fence post. The blackbird spoke to her and then rose from the fence post and flew north. Sarah Ann never looked back after that. My grandfather lived with relatives while she worked and saved for their future.
When my grandfather was 14, Sarah Ann brought him home at last. Together, they built their home and the farm that supported them. They would both live there till their deaths; Sarah Ann helping my grandfather and his wife raise 10 children. They grew Ninety Day White Hickory corn, potatoes, oats, livestock and herbs. Sarah Ann guided the planting, butchering and harvesting by when the sign was right and the little farm did well. To supplement their income, my grandfather ran a small still as well.
Sarah Ann was known as "Aunt Sary" to everyone in the hills and she was the only doctor most of them ever knew. She had the only Balm of Gilead tree in that area, a fact that puzzled many people since that species of tree is not indigenous to that region. The buds of the Bammy Gilly tree made a salve used for almost any external injury, burn or rash. She had a tea, syrup, poultice or salve for every known ailment. Many neighbors swore that they would have died if not for Aunt Sary. Among other things, she made onion and cornmeal mush poultices for pneumonia, elderbloom tea for fever, catnip tea for nerves, and mullien and wild cherry bark tea for almost anything else. She used oak ooze as a soak for puncture wounds or stone bruises, cobwebs and ash to speed healing of open wounds, hoarhound candy for coughs, and Jerusalem Oak seed taffy for round worms. She helped bring a lot of babies into the world and knew that a knife under the bed would cut the pain of labor. She nursed her grandchildren thru polio and smallpox and not a one of them died or suffered permanent effects of either disease. Between her knowledge of herbs and her "special touch", Sarah Ann saved many lives.
Sarah Ann never remarried altho she remained a handsome woman till her death. She was coveted by many men for her beauty and her land, but she was also held in some awe and at a distance because of her ancestry and her power. She was a strong and independent woman during a time when those qualities were simply not seen in women. Even tho she had long crossed over before my birth, she has always been my inspiration and my guide thru life. There is a Sarah Ann (or Sarah Anne) in every generation of our family to carry on the craft and I am one of them. Even tho my mother insisted she would not name me for anyone in my father's family, to myself and my kin, I'll always be Sarah Anne. My father and my aunts made sure that I was given enough of Sarah Ann's legacy to "know" her and carry on. Sarah Ann herself guides me.
So this is my tribute to the strongest wise woman I ever knew. While she practiced her craft from her home, I think she would have liked to have a store like the Emporium. I also think that she would have loved to see herself immortalized with a doll made in her likeness.
This is Sarah Ann: And this is the custom doll made in her likeness:
