Using a black cat to heal the sick, a Utah folklore story

Using a black cat to heal the sick is a regional folklore story.

Lyman Lafayette Woods (1833-1918) was an early Mormon settler who lived in Provo, Springville, St. George, and Clover Valley (near Barclay, Nevada).

Lyman was described as a “good Latter-day Saint and active in Church work” and a “splendid nurse using mostly nature’s remedies.”

A daughter of Lyman, Roxa, was ill with pneumonia and was not improving with his normal cold-water treatment. He and an individual described as “an old Welsh lady” known as “Grandma Jones” cured Roxa using the skin of a black cat. Grandma Jones saying “the darker the cat, the surer the cure.”

The cat was killed, and its skin removed and placed on Roxa. As told, the [static] electricity in the skin of the black cat seemed to draw out all the poison from the body of the sick girl. Roxa survived.

There are several other examples of the belief in using the skin or fur of a cat to cure various ailments. The book Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from Utah records references to cure appendicitis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and various stomachaches. And the editors of the book note that as recently as the 1960s, drugstores in Paris displayed tanned cat furs in their store windows for use in various respiratory and arthritic diseases.

After a little sleuthing, I believe the old Welsh lady to be Dinah Davies Vaughn Jones (1813-1895). She was born in Wales, arrived in Salt Lake City in 1861, and is often referred to as a healer, physician, and midwife. She and her family spent a few years in Salt Lake City and then relocated to Gunlock, Utah. However, Dinah spent a lot of time away from her Gunlock home while tending to her patients, primarily women.

Her affinity to travel may not be too surprising as she had a weird home life: Dinah had four surviving children with her first husband, William Vaughan, who died in 1852 in Missouri. Dinah married her second husband, William Ellis Jones in 1856 in Missouri. Dinah, William, and their blended family made the trip across the plains to Salt Lake City in 1861. William married Dinah’s eldest daughter (William’s stepdaughter), Martha Vaughan, as a plural wife and they had six kids together.

Needless to say, it was probably weird for Dinah to visit her husband, who was also married to her own daughter. Dinah’s grandchildren were also her stepchildren.

 
This story comes from the book Our Pioneer Heritage Vol 2 by Kate Carter, 1959, “And They Were Healed” “A Black Cat” pages 105-106 and seems to have been derived from The Dora Woods and Larkin Richard Schaffer Family manuscript pgs 105-126, which is on FamilySearch.

Other sources:

• The Woods Family of Clover Valley, Nevada 1869-1979. Published by Woods Family Genealogical Committee, Boulder City, NV 1979. Available from Washington County Historical Society
• Life of Lyman Lafayette Woods of Brigham Young’s Company, by Roxa Edwards Keele, 1956.
• The Dora Woods and Larkin Richard Schaffer Family. Ch 17 Dora’s Close Ancestors. From FamilySearch
• Popular beliefs and superstitions from Utah. 1984. University of Utah Press. Edited by Anton S. Cannon, Wayland D. Hand, Jeannine Talley
• Washington County News 1941-11-20 p1. St George Woman Dies at Home
• Various genealogical data sources on FamilySearch, Ancestry, Find-a-Grave