Images of Mother Simington's Blood Purifier

Mother Simington's Blood Purifier
Bottle Front
(Photo courtesy of Sandy Faul)

I have been meaning to share something with you for a while, and that is some photos of an actual bottle of Mother Simington’s Blood Purifier. I heard from reader Sandy Faul that she had an empty bottle in her possession, and she kindly agreed to provide me with photos and permission to share them on this blog. You will recall from a previous blogpost, dated February 13, 2013, and titled Mother Elizabeth Simington and Her Blood Purifier, that Elizabeth Crawford Simington, the sister of my great great grandmother Jane Crawford Monk, was the producer of a health elixir called Mother Simington’s Blood Purifier, which was sold all over Iowa and nationwide at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth. It had panacea-like properties as there seemed to be nothing that it was not purported to cure.

Mother Simington's Blood Purifier
Side View
(Photo courtesy of Sandy Faul)

Sandy states that she obtained the bottle from The Milford Pharmacy and Gift Store in Milford, Iowa. It had come into the store’s possession after being found in the wall of a house in Milford which was being demolished. The bottle is described as: seven inches high, with four square sides, with two sides printed in English, and two in Danish, and was manufactured in Milford, Iowa by the Mother Simington Company. (Apparently there was a wave of Danish immigration to Iowa in the 1870’s). She provided me with photos of three of the sides, as the paper on all of the sides had started to “peel away from age”. Sandy also forwarded me a section from History of Clay County by Dian Gustafson, in which is it claimed that some of the ingredients of the elixir were “sorghum and molasses”. Gustafson also reports that Elizabeth had run the “first boarding house in Sanborn after her husband’s death”, which was in 1899, and that she “catered to the first users of the new railroad when it came through”.

Mother Simington's Blood Purifier
Back view
(Photo courtesy of Sandy Faul)

Many thanks to Sandy for the photos, data from her own research, and permission to share these with you. I so appreciate hearing from readers of this blog, and all they share with me.

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers and to those who share some Canadian heritage.