By Lawrence Bakke as told to Dail Murray
John Hawkinson. He was an old, very old man when I remember him. He sold Kuriko—patent medicine. He’d have a little box on a sled and he’d go to the neighbors and sell it for $1.10 a bottle. Once a neighbor wanted to buy a bottle for just a dollar. Hawkinson said to him, ‘You go home and I’ll bring you a bottle.’ But he never showed up there. He didn’t want to sell it for less.
He was from the old country, you know. Once when we went to school there was a bridge just put in and he didn’t want us to whistle when we crossed that bridge. He thought there were trolls underneath and that’s why he told us not to whistle. He was quite a character, I remember.
This medicine is designed for relief of constipation and the following symptoms; upset stomach, indigestion, coated tongue, flatulence, loss of appetite, headache, nervousness, restlessness and loss of sleep.
Prepared from the following ingredients: Senna, fennel, mandrake root, peppermint, spearmint, horsemint, Sasparilla, sassafras, mountain mint, hyssop, thistle, ground ivy, vittany, johnswort, lemonbalm, sage, spikenard and yarrow.
Uncle Lawrence had this bottle of Kuriko (not Juricko is stated above) when I last saw him. Shortly before he died he gave the bottle to Lorraine Borgen. She showed it to me one day when it was in her china cabinet in her dining room. I wonder what happened to it after she died? I asked her daughter Rachel about it one day but she didn't know. I do have a scanned copy of the photo that accompanied this picture in the original publication.
ReplyDeleteLorraine was a Haakenson, but I am not sure what her relationship was to John Hawkinson. Name spellings were not consistent.
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