My mother wanted to make jams and jellies for the
winter. So, she hooked up our Ford
Ferguson tractor to her small wagon and took off for the fence line where she’d
seen some wild grapes growing. She
loaded the wagon up and returned home to process the grapes. Making several jars of jam, she proudly
showed my dad her efforts. Dad started
to laugh. As soon as he managed to calm
down, he informed her that she had been picking poison ivy berries and had made
poison ivy jam!
My mother was in bed for a week with the worst case of
poison ivy the doctor had seen in a very long time. Since that incident, she developed an allergy
to poison ivy.
