Turpentine and Family Reunion

As I said earlier, a roller coaster. I'd contracted for two gigs months before I knew Derek was leaving this weekend. I had to follow through. It meant a lot of driving--I'd intended to stay overnight and drive from one to the other. Instead, I drove home each night, a 3-hour drive one way but worth it to be able to spend more time with my sons and their children who came home this weekend to see Derek before he left.



My first performance of the weekend was at Greenbrier State Forest near Lewisburg, WV. For the first time in my 12-year storytelling career, I had an attendee argue with another attendee--in the middle of a story. Fortunately I was able to pull them back into the story, but the park naturalist told me later he was afraid he'd have to separate them! It was a new experience, certainly.



What were they disagreeing about? Turpentine! Seems one lady thought she needed to inform everyone right then and there of the dangers of using the wrong kind. An elderly gentleman disagreed, said he'd used all brands and had no ill effects.


That disagreement sent me back to my research. Although I've been telling this particular story for years and had researched it way back when, I figured I'd better refresh my memory and check on what this lady was saying.


She was sort of right and sort of wrong. There are, it turns out, several kinds of turpentine. Most are derived from certain kinds of pine trees. There is, however, a synthetic type called "turpentine substitute" or "mineral turpentine" that might have been what she was referring to.


True turpentine is derived from pine trees. It has been proved to be dangerous if ingested or inhaled. Old-timers used it (and many still do) for all sorts of purposes--for cuts and bruises and scrapes and bug bites and bee stings and head lice, to name a few. It is the internal uses that cause concern, and everything I have read advises against it. I'd warn against external use too--this stuff can be pretty potent.

Here are some websites about turpentine:
Zora Neale Hurston spent some time in a turpentine camp. This website includes photos, history and more.




Wikipedia has a lot of good information about turpentine



The maritime world used turpentine for many things.



Horry County, North Carolina, produced a lot of turpentine, as attested by this article.

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The next evening I was in Bluefield, WV to tell stories for a family reunion. Not the first time I'd done such a gig, but as in the past I wondered if anything I had to say was better than their own family stories.

I needn't have worried. The stories I told, mostly my own or my husband's family stories, were right on target. I was surprised when a lady hurried up after the set to tell me that her mother was also a WWII British war bride and that I was the first person she'd met with a similar background. We'll be talking again in the near future, comparing notes on what it was like to have English moms in America.