42 Lancastt r Farming. Saturday, Nov. 15, 1975
Growing herbs has
become her hobby
By Mr*. Charles McSparran
Feature Writer
Herbs are returning to their rightful place of usefulness
in our homes and are becoming more popular in home
gardens. One who has turned a hobby into practical use,
traveled extensively in search of more kinds of herbs and
grows many kinds of herbs is Mrs. Thomas Cox, 130 New
Haven Street, Mount Joy, Lancaster County.
Mrs. Cox finds growing and using herbs very exciting.
She says “I wanted a hobby, nothing quite suited me.
About fourteen years ago I started an herb garden.” At
last count she had 98 varieties and plans to get more kinds.
Most people are not aware that so many kinds exist,
however; Mr, and Mrs. Cox visited Hill Top Herb Garden,
Cleveland, Texas, where they saw 1400 kinds growing.
This is a business and gift shop run by Mrs. Madalyn Hill
and is located north of Houston.
What is an herb? There are numerous definitions
because there are so many varieties and types of plants
listed as herbs and their uses are so varied. An herb is a
plant without woody tissue whose stem withers and dies
after each season’s growth. Any such plant used as a
medicine, seasoning, food or scent. Even this does not
describe some herbs. Mrs. Cox’s favorite herb is Aloe
vera, sometimes known to its growers as Healing Plant,
Medicine Plant, Sunburn Plant or Egyptian Plant. It is of
the lily family and must be taken indoors for the winter in
cold climates. It has been used for 2000 years for
medicinal purposes. The leaves are hollow except for a
milk-like substance which is good for burns and other
healing purposes. Mrs. Cox keeps a leaf in the refrigerator
Mrs. Thomas Cox, Mount Joy, holding her favorite
herb plant and sitting beside her other aloe vera .
plants.
Coun
Heart disease - is it really what we eat?
By Melissa Piper
Heart disease is by no means new In fact it’s
probably been around since humans first began
living on earth And while research into its causes
and cures have been going on for many years,
we’ve been bombarded with information on the
subject in the past three years
We’ve heard that exercise is imperative and
smoking doesn’t help but the one mam concern has
been what you eat.
That old vilhan cholestrol has really been tossed
around, thrashed about, chewed up and literally
spit back in our faces For many medical people
have linked serum cholestrol and heart disease
hand m hand And if heart disease is not scary
enough - the fear campaign lodged by many
medical personnel and advertisers is certainly just
that'
It’s not my purpose to go into an indepth study of
heart disease and its relationship to cholestrol or
vice-versa but several articles recently written by
noted researchers in the field of cardiology have
certainly opened the discussion on the matter
Up until about three years ago, people were
Corner
for use when needed. Another medicinal herb is German
Squill which can be used for a felon. It has drawing
qualities.
The late Rosetta E. Clarkson, an outstanding herbalist,
said “An herb is a plant that has been cherished for
centuries because of its usefulness in cooking, in
medicine, in household preparations and in industry."
Mrs. Cox says herbs are for everyone and quotes Euell
Gibbons “An herb is to hunt; an herb is to learn; an
herb is to see; an herb is to pick; an herb is to taste; an
herb is to smell; an herb is to cure our illnesses; and an
herb is to eat."
Mrs. Cox, who wants to do an herb history sometime,
has over 80 herb books. She has collected herb recipes and
uses herbs a lot in cooking. She cautions not to use too
much as some are strong in flavor. If you’re not sure how
much to use, just take a pinch the first time. She sub
scribes to The Herb Grower which is the only herb
magazine published in the United States.
Mrs. Cox belongs to the Herb Society of America. Its
closest unit is in Philadelphia. She is interested in having
a local herb society but a unit should have 20 members.
She went to the national convention in Detroit in 1974. It
will be in Philadelphia next year. She has traveled ex-
Homestead Notes
tensively in search of herb plants and to see how herbs are
used. She says Rosemary is used for hedges in Morocco.
In Spain, the poor go to the Madrid Botanical Gardens on
Saturdays for free herbs.
The Coxes go far and wide to buy herb plants. Mrs. Cox
does not like to start herbs from seed. She gets quite a few
from Miss Mary Glick of Smoketown, Lancaster County
but also goes to Westminster, Md., Cleveland, Ohio and
buys Rosemary plants from The Rosemary Shop in
Mechanicsburg, Pa. Coxes herb garden is laid out in
elevated beds with stone walk ways among them.
Vera enjoys giving talks on herbs. Some of her topics
are “Herbs Especially The Biblical Herbs”, “Herbs
And The Tussle Mussie” (a tussie mussie is a gift to give),
“Herbs And A Mayflower Thanksgiving”, “Gold
Frankincense, Christmas Herbs, And Myrrh”, “Gold
“Herbs And The Bicentennial.” On some occasions she
gives out samples of dried herbs or teas.
Vera, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Eby, Mount
Joy, graduated from Mount Joy High School and took two
years in Home Economics at Penn State University. She
discontinued her education until after her first marriage
and her second son was bom when she went to MillersviUe
State College. She started teaching fourth grade at
Grandview Elementary School in Mount Joy when her
second son was in first grade and this is her sixteenth year
teaching. She also acted as a tour guide in Lancaster
County for four years.
Her son, Mitchell Hess, enrolled in the Mineral
Economics course at Cleveland State University, received
his Bachelor’s Degree there and his Master’s Degree at
Penn State University. He married Kathy Kurth of
Cleveland, Ohio. The couple is currently living in
eating (without too much fear) butter, eggs,
cheese, milk and pork without dropping over in
great numbers In fact our grandparents and great
grandparents probably found these foods as staple
diets. But after some research findings were
printed on the correlation of serum cholestrol and
arteriosclerosis we suddenly began to fear for our
lives
Instead of eating eggs, we were told that artificial
egg products were much better as they contained
nocholestrol Even if they do have several artificial
flavorings and color (which just may produce
cancer) at least there was no chance of adding to
the development of heart disease.
And what about those other dairy products 7 Well
we suddenly found all kinds of artificial cheese and
dairy products lining the shelves of the super
market
We’ve also been “informed" that animal fat is
very bad for the situation And while this might be
true to a certain extent, it has been vastly over
exaggerated Pork which has been especially
picked on contains much more protein and a large
Mrs. Vera Cox, in front of their recently built
fireplace and built in oven in their remodelled
kitchen and holding her favorite cookbook "Private
Collections. A Culinary Treasure", loves to cook
with herbs.
Capetown, South Africa. The past two summers Mr. and
Mrs. Cox visited Mitchell and Kathy in Capetown. Last
year they toured six African countries and this year five
countries with them.
Scott, her second son is taking the Political Science -
course at Penn State and will graduate in March, 1976.
Vera met Thomas Cox while on a National Education
tour of Spain and Portugal. Tom was born in Bethlehem,
Pa. and also lived in Scranton. He taught school in the
Bethlehem School District and is now a special education
teacher at Columbia High School. Both are NEA and PEA
members. Coxes have many slides of their trips and often
show them to children and adults for the schools, Parent-
Teacher, Rotary and Church groups.
Mr. and Mrs. Cox are members of Saint Mark’s United
Methodist Church in Mount Joy. They are members of
Schaefferstown Historical Society and Mrs. Cox is a
member of the Mount Joy Historical Society.
They both, enjoy bowling as a pastime. Vera is in the
Clearview Bowling League and Tom is in the Lincoln
Bowling League of Mount Joy. They play bridge in the
Lancaster Red Rose Bridge Club once a week and also
play bridge in New Cumberland.
They also like collecting antiques. They had a household
sale recently to make room for their antiques. They are
just completing extensive remodeling of their housed
making room for a library and also shelf space for Vera’s,
herb books in the kitchen. They collect Mount Joy an~
tiques and have a room in their basement known as the:
Mount Joy Room where they have a Brady stove, a
collection of old bottles made in Mount Joy and pictures of
early girls’ schools.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Cox enjoy trying new recipes and.
have a policy of keeping only the recipes they especially
like. They type them on filing cards and put them on file.
Mrs. Cox has many cookbooks but she especially enjoys
one called “Private Collections: A Culinary Treasure”,
written by Janet E. C. Wurtzbruger and published by The
Women’s Committee Of The Walters Art Gallery. She
says “In cooking I believe I like the thymes, marjoram,
savories. I like Rosemary in lamb. I like to make herb
vinegars. I like to make herb jellies, start with pure apple
juice and pectin. Basil herbs are good for jellies.” Tom
does not cook but throughly enjoys baking different kinds
of breads and has quite a reperotoire of recipes. When
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amount of necessary vitamins which certainly
overrides its so called "faults."
Even our mayonnaise has been taken to the
laboratory and rejuvmated into looking the same
but made without eggs.
Most of us know these things are happening and
assume that with so much going on it must be for
our betterment. But what we don't often see are
the articles written by prominent cardiologists
which have noted that dieting has little to do with
heart disease.
For more than what we eat or do, heart disease
say the specialists may be caused more by basic
abnormalities of metabolism.
Dr. Michael Deßakey, the noted cardiac
specialist from Texas, recently was quoted as
saying, "Rigid diets are going to affect only a
relatively small segment of the millions of people
who have the basic abnormality of metabolism
which leads to heart disease.”
"We don’t know the causes of arteriosclerosis so
how are we going to prevent it.”
While the leading cardiologist suggests that
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