Daddy's remedy started with the mountain tea oil which he manufactured here in Mountain City, Tennessee. He used it to rub on the inflicted areas or joints. To this was added camphor, kerosene and several other chemicals which I do not know. But I do remember the camphor, kerosene and mountain tea oil because of the horrible odor the combination left through the entire house. He never told his formula to anybody, and to my knowledge he never wrote it down. He just mixed it up out in the garage and tried it on himself. He later gave some to his friends and neighbors. In doing this he gradually developed a concoction that evidently helped relieve the aches and pains and got people back on their feet.
As time went on his circle of "patients" grew larger. He began to collect statements, or affidavits, getting their permission to print and use them as advertising in promoting his remedy. Some of the statements given to Daddy were fantastic. He had a stack about three or four inches high of several hundred signed statements. It is a shame they got destroyed or thrown away over time.
Some said they had been down in bed for several days and after using the medicine for a few days they were up and about again. Others said they had tried many other remedies and none helped till this one came along, which did help relieve the pain.
But the best was one Daddy told me. He had heard about this old fellow who had been down in bed for several weeks and nothing seemed to help him. Daddy took a sample out to his home and gave it to the man's wife and told her how to apply it. Daddy left saying he would return in a few days to check in.
Well, after about a week Daddy went back out to see the old fellow. He couldn't find anybody at the house. Finally he went out to the barn, about 50 yards away, and found the old man with pitchfork in hand, cleaning manure out of the horse stalls. The old fellow must have thought Daddy was going to try to collect some money for the medicine, because he immediately began to complain that the liniment wasn't any good, didn't do him any good after three or four days trying it. Besides, he said, he
got to feeling better, so he got up and came to the barn to work.
When he first started to merchandise the remedy no store owner would buy any. But they would take it on consignment. So Daddy put it out to several stores and drug stores with the understanding they would pay for what they sold. I believe the wholesale price was nine dollars per dozen bottles.
In time he worked up a small mail order business. The direct sales to the stores he handled himself. As usual, his thoughts and plans turned to much bigger territory and much larger sales volume. Why not go for the large numbers of people out there with
rheumatism? Why not get rich at this?
In trying to determine how best to reach that large number of rheumatic sufferers, he hit upon the idea of going to Hot
Springs, Arkansas. In those days there were large numbers of people who went to Hot Springs to bathe in the warm spring water. Of course it had been touted as a good remedy for rheumatism, and was a big attraction for the area. He figured that, percentagewise, you could get the largest amount of exposure there of anywhere in the United States. So, if you were there with your product at the right season, you could have satisfied customers going back to all parts of the country, all singing the praises of your remedy for rheumatism. The results would be an enormous mail order business, as well as a national distribution system. He set out to do just that.
My best recollection is that this was about 1930. We had a 1928 Chevrolet coupe with a rumble seat. Daddy took out the rumble seat and filled the space with box after box of the remedy and also the front seat beside the driver. He then set out for Hot Springs.
After getting settled in a boarding house, he went about trying to get the local merchants and drug stores to push his product. What he encountered was something he had not in the least imagined. Those merchants were, and had been for years, making a good living from the influx of rheumatic sufferers. Why should they accept, and assist, an outsider to provide their customers with a way to leave and never come back? Not only that, but to go back home and tell their fellow sufferers they could mail order a liniment that would replace the wonders of the hot springs. They nearly ran him out of town.
Daddy came home with just about all the bottles he left with. He was one of the most dejected and beaten men you could imagine. He didn't say much. Just enough to let the family realize the scope of his disappointment. That was the end of his enthusiasm for the liniment, and any effort to sustain any business he had of it. He just plain gave it up and quit. That was the end of "Ray's Rheumatic Liniment."
Boyd Ray lives in Mountain City, Tennessee. This is his first piece for Blue Ridge Country.
Note: These archival articles are presented exactly as they appeared at the time of the issue in which they appeared. As such, all quotes, as well as references to temporal facts, artifacts and other items are contemporaneous to the date of original publication.