S1:E7 - What is a Granny Woman?

Hey y'all - happy podcast day to ya!

So, what in the world is a Granny Woman, and why is it a buzzword on social media these days? Join me as I share a ramble, or five, about the history of Granny Women, how the terms is used today, and what they did in their communities. I'll also discuss the commodification of the rural poor culture.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey y'all, it's Kim, the voice and face behind Mom Strange Magic, and this week we are going to talk about, or I am going to talk about greeny women. What in the world is a greeny woman? And why are you seeing that pop up all over your social media right now? Who were they? Why did they exist? Well, first, I'm all flummoxed because my technology is not working the way that I want it to, and this gets me, you know, before before we dive in, let me have a ramble so I can stick to the topic of granny women. Technology is great when it works. If you are someone that relies on using social media or technology to do the work that you do, when it doesn't work, it's a pain in the butt, it stinks. So you have to adapt, improvise, and overcome, which oftentimes means not getting things done that you wanted to get done. You have real life chores that need to be taken care of. But here we are in 2026, and if you do anything that has a path to business, y'all gotta be on social media. Them's the rules. I don't make them. That's just how it is. Which is why I have been working to make a spot online that's kind of like a virtual porch, a place where you can rest your weary soul for a little bit. But the universe and all of its infinite wisdom keeps pushing me to make this a an actual place. And just right now, at this time, even though I'm working hard at trying to get that done, it's just going slowly because weather and because things that we cannot even imagine going on in our face 24 hours a day, breaking news this, breaking news that. So please bear with me. Um, I do not have a non-stop connection to the internet. Um, technology is not my priority in my life, my family is, uh, the clients and people that I work with are. So there you go. So please know that I don't have any high-tech gear. I don't have a great microphone. A cat's gonna show up. Sometimes there's noises, the house pops, there's all kinds of things. But what I can tell you for real is that everything here is human-made. It's all me, 100%. Okay, and stay tuned for announcements at the end. Um, granny women, y'all. Um, what is it? You're about to make me lose my mind up in here, up in here. Um, I'm not gonna, you know, it's you know, that movie that one time at Band Camp. Um I'm just really conflicted in my heart and in my soul right now that the things that I grew up with that were literally, literally made fun of. And even though I grew up in a small town, I was born in a small town. Um, thank you, John Cougar Mellon Cooter. Uh it's John Cougar Mellon Camp, but as a kid, anyway. Um, actually, I got to drive anyway. Whole story. Um, I grew up in a small town in Indiana, and we were poor. We also came, we we were interlopers, meaning we came from the c from the city to the country, and I think that my parents will were very ill prepared for that. Um, I, however, uh I loved it. And now as I've gotten older and I look at my family line on my dad's side and my mom's side, um, I'm I'm destined to to live in the country. Um, give me a uh a small country house, a couple acres of land, um a good internet connection, and I'd be happy. I'd be happy. Um so I, you know, even when I would go to school and the kids in the city, they would make fun of us in that area because we were poor, so on and so forth. And you know, we got commodities and whatever. And and so and that was pretty that that landed all the way until um within the last five or six years, right? And even now, there's still a large contingent of people who think it's just real funny to make fun fun of the poor, to make fun of people that live in the country, um, and really just to make fun of people, which is sucky. Um, but what I'm seeing now is the commodification of the rural poor, right? So the poor use if you were poor, we grew up poor, and we, me, myself, and I, I grew up poor. And things like charity shops or goodwill or thrift shops were how we got by. My half-sister's dad was a garbage collector, and I'm pretty sure that half of the furniture that I had as a young child came from uh where what people had left on the side of their houses in Cleveland, Ohio. And so, you know, uh my mom grew up poor. Uh I'm not really sure how my half-sister's dad grew up, but just whatever. Um, I know my dad didn't really grow up poor, but his grandfather, anyway. So salt of the earth people are my people. Now, um the the the male parent did not raise me to be as as such, so it was kind of a stranger in a strange land, getting all kinds of education and hanging out with people that um some of them, you know, and this is even true in the 70s and 80s, some of them didn't make it past eighth grade, and that was all they needed, and that was good enough. Um, because their dad had only made it past fourth grade, or their mom had only made it past fourth grade. And um, these were wonderful people, smarter than anybody I'd known that had 24 different letters behind their name. They could tell you about the weather, they could look at a uh an insect on the ground and tell you how the dirt was. I mean, these people they knew the land, they knew themselves anyway. So, but now it's cool. Let's let's let's buy, let's go to a uh a thrift store or a yard sale and buy someone's great-grandmother's thing and hang it in our you know, their lamp and pay$200 for it and be like cottage core whimsy, such but cottage core whimsy was how poor people lived. And if you you know, like y'all, you need to learn some things, and you know, yeah, it's like this culture is not for sale. Oh my gosh. And the thing is, is that the people that it's the that it's happening to, they're not getting any benefit from it. So anyway, whatever. Okay, Sarah Sarah. But what I'm seeing a lot of is folks being granny women, right? And saying things like your granny was a witch, she was not a witch, and if you had called your granny a witch, she would have beat you with a switch. She would have she would have learnt you something right then and there, because she used the power of the Bible and the good lord above, and she used the plants that were given to her by the good lord above, and she was never ever ever would take credit for what she did because it was all in God's hands, and so what I see now is um it it's surprising to me, but you know, I mean, to each their own. Uh back in the day we used a phrase called pretendian, um, and not very nice thing to say, really, but you know, it's I I get it. We want to be something, and we see these granny women, and we see these um hill folk, and we see these rednecks and hillbillies that look really happy and really that like they're doing and they have it, looks like they got power, and it looks like they got this. But this this to be if you were a granny woman, it was not always because you wanted to be, it was out of necessity. It was because there was no one there to birth the the babies, um, animals, human, you know, they you you needed someone to be there to make sure the mother was okay, and this is you know, this is in the again role pour areas, right? Um, and these women knew how to keep a low weight baby alive, they knew how to take care of the mother, they knew the nourishing soups and the teas and the simples, and they kept these people alive. Those women these these women that that woman, that one woman, kept them alive. And you know, she knew the prayers. She knew how to take a white stone and rub it along the back and throw it into running water while making sure that this person had um gravel root tea or um cleavers or whatever, you know, whatever they thought they needed, and then they would give them a prayer and and and they would sit with the sick and the dying. And it was you you you didn't get a contract and uh a spot on a talk show because you were a granny woman, very often you didn't even get to take care of the very family that you had because you were out taking care of the whole community. Um, and so before I had to take a little break and um do some of my own healing, before I stepped into this path that was given to me um through my own ancestors and through my own research and through talking to um people anyway, anyway, um I I was already starting to get a little bit like what why why would you want that much work? What being a granny woman doesn't mean flipping up and open a uh a sweat lodge and singing kumbaya. Um it means sometimes meeting yourself at the door because you're so busy. And I'm not I don't actively work in a poor remote community right now, so I'm not exactly I can't I don't really feel comfortable saying I'm a granny woman. Um I feel I that's why it's mom strange magic, right? It's it's that's what I do. It's just mom strange magic. Hat tip to Mr. the Mr. my sweet dear husband. But anyway, what why do I I if anyone has an explanation? I mean, honestly, that's kind of rhetorical because I have spent a lot of time studying why this happens. Um, you know, I use this example often how um if you had a suntan, you were poor and people didn't want to hang out with you, but now you get a suntan because you're rich and people hang out with you, um, but you go into a metal box to get it anyway. Um, and and I'm not, you know, this may sound like I'm like these people are blah, blah, blah. That's not it. Everybody gotta walk their own path. Um, I think I see one of the things that I see lately is that we're all trying real hard to tell everyone else how they should be while not sitting down with ourselves and seeing what we are. And I have a real close relationship with that because I fought my own path for a very long time, and I tried on different things and I got the certificates, and I got the well, I can I will um this will make me seem more professional, or this will legitimize my stuff, or whatever. And I'm gonna tell you what right now, um, if you look at the old healer women and the old healer men from long ago, they never got a piece of paper. But they could walk out in nature and tell you every single plant that they saw that was with the, you know, they the the that they had in their repertoire, right? Um a good herbalist knows that you find the the plants that like working with you the most, and you use those to the best of your ability, right? And if there's something else that you think might be out there, you you look into it, but you you learned this and you learned how to find it, and you learned when to use it, whether you use the root, the stem, the seeds, the flower, whatever. You knew how to use it. Um, and you could make a nourishing meal out of some bones, uh, some spring onions, and uh fried up some dandelion uh flowers and just you know, whatever, or nettle nettle soup, nettle tea, real good nourishing, tonifying after the long winter. Anyway, I'm not here to give you a dissertation on what you can eat in your yard, um, which if you spray or it has chemicals, don't eat anything in your yard, just FYI. Um, and which could get me on to the the foraging and the whatever, which again, I'm really glad that these people are out there trying to educate people and show them how to do things the right way. But a lot of times what happens is these people wind up not getting the things correct, they get sick, and then they go to the physician, and the physician's like, oh, those remedies are blah blah and that's crazy, and it's not science-based, and it's blah blah blah, and then it demonizes the poor, it demonizes the herbalist, it demonized it demonizes the people trying to do that even more, even more. It's just this. I don't know. I've been in discussion recently with Mr. the Mr. and I'm trying to figure out why humans do the things they do, including things that I have done in the past, but y'all can't really figure out, can't figure nothing out, so all I can do is just do better and be better every day. Amen. Um, so what is a granny woman? A granny woman is a woman who either was needed because the community didn't have one, or was taught this from her mother and grandmother, probably more likely her grandmother, because her mother would have been busy raising the children, as would have as this young woman, right? Um, everybody chipped in to raise raise the babies, and she would have learned this because it was a woman's job, so to speak, to know how to feed her family, keep them healthy, uh, how to have babies, how to have help other people have babies, and what to do when someone in the family passed away. And a granny woman is the epitome of woman's work. Um they were the ones that did everything. And when your personal grandmother couldn't take care of it, or if your own mother couldn't take care of it, or any of the other women in your family, you would go to the granny woman, and she would help you by first listening, right? She would come in, she would take stock of what was going on in the family, she would look around the environment, and then she would just kind of hold space. The again buzzword for 2026, but she would sit there and just listen. She wouldn't do anything, she wouldn't take action, she would just listen. And then she would start looking at what she could do to make little changes in helping the person feel better. In her toolkit, so to speak, would be a list of prayers that she had memorized, probably from the psalms, definitely others from the New Testament, but definitely from the Psalms. If it was some a woman in labor, she would have a prayer and start to make ready the bed, get the water, get the things, get something for the woman to bite down on because of the pain or whatever. And then she she would very often start praying herself. Couldn't think of any names. I was gonna say like Goody, whatever, but anyway, um and she would she would ask for the spirit to be with her because she wasn't doing it, she was just working in community with the Lord, okay? And she'd go, you know, you'd go through and how does it you know, then she's like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna put my hands on you. Does it hurt when I touch your hair? Does it, you know, and ask things like real common questions, does your do you feel like does your mouth taste sweet? Um, does your urine smell bad? Does um you know, does it hurt when you do this? She knew all these things and could say, well, um, you know, don't drink this, don't you whatever, do this, and you know, well, you know, your daddy did do this, or your mama did do this, or you have an aunt that did this, because often she was the town genealogist as well. Um, and not just one, yeah, anyway. Anytime I do this, in the back of my mind, it's like, Kim, someone is gonna come for you, and I'm like, okay, let them. Like, there are so many angry people out there. If one of them wants to pick me to be the subject of their ire, so be it. I have faced bigger challenges than that, and I'm sure I will face larger ones after this, so whatever. Um, I'm not the self-proclaimed expert on greeny women, only the greeny women are, and there are none of them that were here 200 years ago that are here now. So I just we gotta go on what we think we know, right? And those granny women that still exist in the in the haulers of the world, not just in the Appalachian haulers or the um haulers of the Ozar Ozarks or in eastern Kentucky or Virginia or in the South or none of that. There's granny women everywhere. Um, but they have different names. But anyway, so then she would explain to you okay, this is what we're gonna do, we're gonna put the uh whatever. The you know, and as more modern things came where you could get maybe like um access to uh a heat source or whatever, but most often it was get some rocks that you knew held heat and you threw them to make a makeshift heating pad or whatever, and um they made do with what they had again. They may do with what they had, and now that is splashed on the pages of magazines, but anyway, it does make me cranky, not gonna lie. Um, and then you know, she didn't have time to linger, might help get things together for the family, and then would move on to the next thing that she needed to take care of. Now, were some of those remedies a little dangerous? Absolutely. Um, we don't some of the stories about the what would be considered grammy granny women in um Europe would use things like mercury and leeches. Um and actually it was kind of more of the men that were like women can't be healers that started using that. But anyway, not gonna not ragging on men. Um but uh they they didn't like the modern things as much. Um, you know, they would have to hear the baby moving, they would have actually put their ear to the to the mother's um womb and stomach lower abdomen area to listen to to hear the moving or the kicks or whatever. Um and uh, you know, there are some things that I have read about and learned that even though I do I do love me some of that stuff, I would be very hard-pressed to consider it. Um I have seen wild and miraculous things happen that I cannot explain, but um, you know, taking the first branch off a willow tree and trying to beat the spirits out are not is not something that um I'm interested in. And that that's that's a treatment. That's a treatment. Um and so you know when when you when you're given that responsibility or that path calls to you, it is not glamorous. Um you don't usually roll around in money, and it is something that you are more than something that you do. Um, and in the past, I I have leaned a little bit into that and been like, oh yeah, here's this, and let me try to make a little bit of money on it, and it just didn't work. This FYI didn't work. Um, and I thought, well, I'll try over here in this camp. I'm gonna go to the um uh oh, what's her name? Dag on it. She's in Fleetwood Mac. Anyway, that lady. I'm gonna go and sing Rian and and and be in the the witchy witchy group, and I couldn't do that either because it was there was a whole lot of hierarchy there that made me understand why why I personally am not uh someone that and enjoys going to church, but I do love me some spiritual live-in, so I just couldn't do it. Oh, I can't, I was thinking it out. Her name just came to me again. Dang it. Oh, I can see it, not Carly Simon. Oh my gosh. What is her name? Stevie Nicks. Whew. I had to think of her clothing anyway. Um, but at the same time, this is again, I I get to feel some kind of way about it out of my own desire to find my own voice and out of my the thing where I am probably very much overly protective of those that live in poverty because I experienced poverty as a child, I experienced poverty in my 20s, and um while I haven't experienced that kind of poverty um in my marriage and mothering of my family, we have had times in our life where it was dicey, it was very dicey, and um we we really had to to skate around a little bit, but we were not in poverty like I had been in my 20s, where I had to live in my car or where I had been as a kid when I, you know, had commodities and had to wear the anyway. And um I spent a lot of my uh life and even some in my 30s working with unhoused people and spent many months on Barge Town Road. Um, it always sort of gets me a little emotional when I think about it because um everyone everyone should be cared for no matter what. Um even if they don't look like you, vote like you, speak like you, or do things on social media that um get you a little aggravated like you right? Everyone everyone is we we are all connected, um anyway. So you know how I get asked this, how do I become like you? A lot of trauma, a deep sense of humor, and a never-ending desire to fall down 20 times and get up 21 times and then fall back down again because I'm compelled by forces unknown to do this. So, how do you get to be like this? Well, first again, I can't really call myself a granny woman because I don't serve a rural poor community. Um and uh the communities that I do serve, um some of them some of them are in better financial states than I am. So, you know, uh it's like that. Um but if you you know what what I tell people is if they want to find out who they are or what their path is, that um it it you're gonna have to to make some choices in life. You're gonna have to do some healing, you're gonna have to face some fears, you're gonna have to really reconcile with yourself, you're gonna have to see if you can find other people to stand. You're you know, there's it's it's not easy. Um, it's not easy, and you're not gonna find a weekend course that's gonna teach you how to do all that because it can get you started, and um, you know, and if I've said this to people that a litmus test for me is the you know, is this a valid thing that's being taught? Is the is the cost fair? Is the cost fair to the person teaching it? One, is it gonna pay for their time, pay for the materials, pay for their lodging, and for anything else? So if if it's if that person is able to make a living wage off of what they're charging, one, do you think that's fair? On the exact uh other side of it, is is it fair to the people that want to learn it? Are they trying to prevent people from learning it by making it inaccessible due to the cost? And I know, I know some business person's gonna come at me again, you know, whatever. This may not happen. Um, but I took the business classes, uh, someone gifted me with Ink magazine, which thank you, but also I don't know what to do with that. Um, that you know, if you if you don't value your work, people aren't gonna pay you. That is horse shit. That's straight up horse shit. Um, because I value my work and I value the the people that I work for and that I work with, and I know exactly what I need to have the resources that will help my family and that will allow me to keep doing my work. Um, and I know when someone is you taking advantage of people and their money because and I see this a lot in classes about intuition, I see this a lot of in a lot of classes about healing and herbalism and things like that, is that the prices are so astronomically insane, and honestly, this is I this happens in in our medical system as well, which future podcast FYI, but anyway, um there it does take a little bit of sacrifice and time and resources to get to this point. It also takes trying things over and over again until they don't work anymore, and it does um it's not for everyone, but if it's something that you really want, there are always there's a way to make it happen. You can make it happen. Um, so yeah, that's that's what a greeny woman is, that's what she does, and um that's my feelings about it, and uh, and that's all I got to say about that. Uh said in my best four scum voice um announcements. So I am I'm opening my calendar to clients, and um right now I'm going to do, I guess, phone, or if you need to see my bright shiny face, we can figure that out too. Um, I did Zoom, but Zoom costs me money each month, and if I have to pay that, that cost has to go into um what I charge people for an hour of time. Um, and do I do half hours? Yes. Do I do 15 minutes? No, don't like half hours either. Um, we need a full hour, and that's not because I'm trying to get some kind of big dollar from you. Um, it's because I the you're rushed, I'm rushed. Um, and uh, you know, we we need to sit together and have some time. You need to talk about it, and uh we need to talk about things, and uh so yeah. And y'all, this is the hardest part because I like you know, and I've talked to some of my mentors and talked to Mr. and Mr. He's like, You uh you're worth it, girl, you worth it, and I'm like, but the poor. Um, so anyway, I have openings now, and I will be posting that on my Patreon, and my Patreon is my website. You want to join and do membership options, so be it. That would be great. You can help me upgrade my microphone and all my tech from 2001, it feels like. Um, so that would be great. That'd be honest, you know, whatever. But Patreon, I can do things when I make my prayer shaws, when I do my things, I can just put it all right there. And yes, I I know word, I know all that. I know, I know, I I am not immune. I've been using the internet since I was as in its infant form since I was like 11. I'm 54. That is 43 years of being online, and and while I'm not entirely tired of it, um I it is what it is, and I just I gotta dance with you brung me. So, but anyway, and you can get there from my to at momstrangemagic.com. Um, I am going to be moving uh scaling back my uh social media, um, which I've wanted to do for a long time, and I have danced around like I got Saint Vitus or something. Um, like a spider done bit me and I'm wandering around in the streets. Uh but um I will be using YouTube and my website, uh, and maybe on occasion uh tossing my tossing my ribbons to the winds of the meta. Um, but y'all, I just can't do the TikTok. Just can't. Just but you'll go viral there. Don't care. Don't care. My goal is not to go. I mean, you know, I don't do this work to go viral. I do this work because it puts food on my family's table and it gives me enough to save money. So my dear, sweet, amazing, wonderful husband can finally retire. You know, he just he would like to retire. He's uh he's a good man. So anyway, you can find me. Uh and but anyway, so that's it. Uh the calendar is open. You can check my social media that's still there. Um, anyway, momsstrangemagic.com. That's momstrangemagic.com. Um, anyway, and uh it you'll you'll see how you can schedule time with me and set that up and uh things like that. And there will be an intake that we will do together. Um, I was sending it off to people and then I wasn't getting it back, so um part of our time together is an intake. But anyway, that's all I got for today. Y'all stay safe, um, stay grounded if you can. Know that every all of us are we're all just out here trying to walk each other home. Um be kind, be kind to yourself and others, and know that we are all connected, and what you do to help yourself feel better and do better helps all those around you. Um so yeah, that's about it. And I will see you next week. Bye y'all.