# Anyone Have A Snuff Dipping Grandma?



## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

The apron thread got me thinking about Grandmas and most of the Grandmas I new were snuff dippers. Not only my Grandma but other folks Grandmas as well. Oh,some would have to have a "snuff brush",thats what I called it,but it was a green twig that they would chew one end then use it to dip the snuff out of the can.And also a "spitcan" the name says it all lol.That "Sweet Peach"snuff was some good smelling stuff.My wifes Grandma chewed the bacco. Any of you modern Grandmas dip snuff,go ahead you can tell me,I won't tell anybody. :nana: Eddie


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## PrettyPaisley (May 18, 2007)

I used to! 

My great-grandma was almost 90, had been dipping snuff as long as I knew her, and lived in a house on a creek without plumbing. It used to drive my mother crazy to go see her; she'd take my sister and me to the service station around the corner from Granny's house so we could use the potty before we got there. She didn't want us using the "toilet" out behind the house. 

A little O/T, but I still recall learning to catch crawdads in that creek that ran beside her house. Good memories!


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

Yeah.. my Great Aunt Mary used to dip snuff. Alway had a little between her lip and gum. And yes.. the spit cup. The one with the little bit of tissue crumpled up in the bottom of it to absorb the stuff so it wouldn't spill.
All of my Great Aunts were old mountain women.. canning and canning and canning in an old copper pot over the fire in the backyard etc...
If I could be a tenth of the woman they were I would be a great woman.


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## RedneckWoman (Jun 10, 2004)

I only have step grandkids but I dip. Not that nasty powdered stuff though. Gotta have the long cut and it's a "spitoon" lol. Hey I gave up drinking years ago and gave up smoking, coffee, and soda nearly a year ago so I gotta have some kind of bad habit to see me through lol.

One of my g-grandmas used to use Honey Bee powdered snuff and had the spit can with the tissue in the bottom, the other just smoked Prince Albert in a pipe. Now that I think of it all of the women I knew that were around my g-grandma's age either dipped snuff or smoked Prince Albert.


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## DAVID In Wisconsin (Dec 3, 2002)

My ex-mother in law dipped snuff. She did it right in front of us and thought no one knew. She called it "chocolate." Tried to convince us that her spit cup was a glass of tea that she constantly drank.


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## paulaswolfpack (May 22, 2006)

My memma Boen,my moms mom was the only grandma who dipped. a spit can by every chair she was by far my favorite women. Was still plowing her small garden with a mule in her 60's she lived into her 80's.
Love you Memma


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Remember the True Snuff. is NOT the kind you chew or stick between cheek and gum.
TRUE Snuff is Sniffed Up the Nose~! You still can buy "Snuff" it is very very fine powder, you then put a little on the side of your hand between the index finger and thumb, Some even Call this "Natures Snuff Box". And plug one nostril and "Snort" it up the other one. THAT is Snuff.~! Very very similar how some do cocaine~!
Hence the name, Snuff, Sniff. or Snort lol
I have a Antique Sterling Silver Snuff Box. You then would put that power into this box and then go from there.

Skoal and ALL those others are nothing but chopped up chewing tobacco.~! And that is all. Like Red man, Beechnut, and others.


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

My Great-Grandma Aldridge used snuff...the powder kind in a little tin box with a rooster on the top (I still have one of those tins). She used to make us kids snuff out of cocoa and sugar that she put in empty snuff tins for us. We'd sit on the steps of her back porch and have spitting contests.


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## -TWO- (Mar 25, 2008)

I went out with a girl back in high school that chewed Cophenhagen (Dad always warned me about those Cusick girls). She was hard core, she didn't spit, she swallowed. Said she started chewing when she was 3 yrs. old. Nice looking little gal to. I suppose she very well could be a Grandma by now. Arabian Knight is correct. The stuff you sniff is "snuff". The stuff you chew is "snoose".


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

I still have one of my great-grandma's snuff cans.


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## Shagbarkmtcatle (Nov 1, 2004)

Yes, on my father's side. On my mother's side they were very proper Old Virginians who wouldn't have been caught dead doing that. Also on my father's side was the strange custom of being photographed with the dead. When one of the relatives had died, everyone got their picture taken holding the corpse. When we learned of this, we started to ask, "Alive or dead in this photo?" , whenever we looked at old pictures.


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## southrngardngal (Oct 18, 2005)

My Mamaw Teasley dipped snuff. She had her black gum toothbrush too. My Mom's Mother wouldn't have touched the stuff. 

Jan


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

Shagbarkmtcatle said:


> Yes, on my father's side. On my mother's side they were very proper Old Virginians who wouldn't have been caught dead doing that. Also on my father's side was the strange custom of being photographed with the dead. When one of the relatives had died, everyone got their picture taken holding the corpse. When we learned of this, we started to ask, "Alive or dead in this photo?" , whenever we looked at old pictures.


 Never heard of that,getting your picture made with someone dead. If they ever made me get mine took with someone dead, it better have a fast shutter speed,cause when they set me down my feet wouldn't let me stay there long enough for a photo from a slow camera and even if the camera was fast everything would still be a blur all cept the corpse. lol Eddie


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## RoseGarden (Jun 5, 2005)

A great aunt of mine dipped snuff. She would send us kids to the store to buy it for her in the days when parents sent their kids to the store to buy their snuff and cigarettes and it was legal to do so. I don't recall the brand, but it cost $3.25 and came in a glass, with a tin foil top, and the label if I am not mistaken, was yellow and brown. The glasses were used for drinking glasses when empty. The glass was sort of nubbly, slubbed looking. She used to give us each a quarter and two pennies to buy ourselves a soda pop as a reward for going to the store for her.


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## edzz (Jun 21, 2008)

Grandma, and all 5 aunts, Tube Rose, my mother was the only one that did not dip.


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## RedneckWoman (Jun 10, 2004)

arabian knight said:


> Remember the True Snuff. is NOT the kind you chew or stick between cheek and gum.
> TRUE Snuff is Sniffed Up the Nose~! You still can buy "Snuff" it is very very fine powder, you then put a little on the side of your hand between the index finger and thumb, Some even Call this "Natures Snuff Box". And plug one nostril and "Snort" it up the other one. THAT is Snuff.~! Very very similar how some do cocaine~!
> Hence the name, Snuff, Sniff. or Snort lol
> I have a Antique Sterling Silver Snuff Box. You then would put that power into this box and then go from there.
> ...


True but you can be the one to tell all of the old ladies around here that you're supposed to snort it and not put it in your mouth lol. Of all of the powdered snuff users I've encountered I have never actually seen anyone snort it they always dipped it like the moist stuff.


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

RoseGarden said:


> A great aunt of mine dipped snuff. She would send us kids to the store to buy it for her in the days when parents sent their kids to the store to buy their snuff and cigarettes and it was legal to do so. I don't recall the brand, but it cost $3.25 and came in a glass, with a tin foil top, and the label if I am not mistaken, was yellow and brown. The glasses were used for drinking glasses when empty. The glass was sort of nubbly, slubbed looking. She used to give us each a quarter and two pennies to buy ourselves a soda pop as a reward for going to the store for her.


My mom still has a lot of old snuff glasses and we still use them as drinking glasses.


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

Was the Tube Rose sold in a red paper can like that back in the 50s? cause I remember my grannie using her snuff from a can like that, but I could almost swear it was red paper outside instead of green.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

RedneckWoman said:


> True but you can be the one to tell all of the old ladies around here that you're supposed to snort it and not put it in your mouth lol. Of all of the powdered snuff users I've encountered I have never actually seen anyone snort it they always dipped it like the moist stuff.


 Well I have sniffed it,, as it was supposed to be done. If you watch period type movies and IF they have really made the era look realistic you WILL see people sniffing. In Fact I believe there is even a scene in the movie History Of The World Part I, where the King played by Harvey Korman, DOES sniff some. And in Period movies you will see folks Sniff it, not use it in their mouth.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

> Sniffing snuff was the original method of taking tobacco, first used by the American Indians. Christopher Columbus noticed them sniffing a mysterious powder during his second voyage of discovery (1494-6) and brought the substance back to Europe. Snuff taking fast became the vogue among the Spanish and the French, although it only gained limited acceptance in England until Charles II brought the habit back from his exile in France.


http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/snuff_box_table_of_contents.htm
Many pictures of snuff boxes also~!


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

RedneckWoman said:


> True but you can be the one to tell all of the old ladies around here that you're supposed to snort it and not put it in your mouth lol. Of all of the powdered snuff users I've encountered I have never actually seen anyone snort it they always dipped it like the moist stuff.


 Me neither,I have smelt it and got strangled enough I won't bout to do that no more. Eddie


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## RedneckWoman (Jun 10, 2004)

arabian knight said:


> Well I have sniffed it,, as it was supposed to be done. If you watch period type movies and IF they have really made the era look realistic you WILL see people sniffing. In Fact I believe there is even a scene in the movie History Of The World Part I, where the King played by Harvey Korman, DOES sniff some. And in Period movies you will see folks Sniff it, not use it in their mouth.


Oh yes I have seen it sniffed in movies and so forth I've just never seen it done IRL. Many, many moons ago we even explored the origins of snuff in school so I am familiar with that, I was just saying you just aren't gonna convince the old ladies around here that powdered snuff is for sniffing not oral use lol.


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## sweet_p (Dec 1, 2008)

LOL My mamma is 83 years old and in all of my 48 years,I have never
seen her not dip her tube rose everyday.With her little spit cup with tissue in
the bottom also.To this day if mamma called and said i'm out of snuff,I would
be lickety split the 100 miles round trip to get her some. We all know
what mamma is like with no snuff.LOL Nope not going to happen.
Always green and white wrapper here in Georgia.


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## Nette (Aug 17, 2003)

Oh, yes. Mama Hart dipped snuff. Can't remember the name, but I remember the silver can. I also remember her "toothbrush"--a little blackgum stick that she used to dip it out of the can, and she'd hold the stick on the side of her mouth. I remember walking down the farm path with her to get a new toothbrush, and she'd cut one for me to play with, too. I also remember the brown spittoon that she'd place in a grocery bag beside her rocking chair.


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## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

My grandma was born in 1887, and she used used snuff, most of the women in her age group did. I can remember when I was getting to be a snotty teenager, disliking having to kiss her because sometimes she'd have a little snuff residue in the corners of her mouth. I'd give a million dollars to kiss that snuffy mouth now! She died in 1984, and I still miss her every single day!

She used Garrett Sweet Snuff, and the glasses were what all us kids drank out of when at her house, except on special occasions when we got to use the green bubble glass ones that came in Mother's Oats, lol. I don't know how to post a picture, and it's not mine, but this link shows the glasses and original labels for Garrett Sweet Snuff. 

http://news.webshots.com/photo/1040901610029536729QjVilb


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## charlie-s (Jun 28, 2008)

I grew up in central Texas, north of Waco, out in the middle of Hill county. My great G-ma dipped snuff. Would chew the end of a kitchen match into a fuzz and use that to dip up the snuff and stick it in along side her jaw. She passed when she was 96. My great Aunt smoked a pipe and dipped occasionally and lived to be 92, but my G-Ma thought she was to smooth for us to know that she dipped snuff, but she did and lived to be a ripe age of 103.


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## tyusclan (Jan 1, 2005)

Grandma on my dad's side dipped Railroad Mills, and Grandpa dipped Sweet Dental. Grandpa used to get us all in the truck going somewhere, and he'd put in a dip and start talking before the snuff got wet. The dust would nearly choke us all to death.

Had one aunt that dipped, and she liked sit on the front porch and rock while she worked at something. Might be shelling peas, mending, or whatever. Anyway, when I was over playing with the cousins we always kept an eye on the aunt if she was out on the porch. She'd have a lipful of snuff, and if we saw the rocker rock way back and her head lean we knew to scatter, cause the spit was comin'!


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## Pat (Jul 24, 2004)

Guess I'm a little old... dipping snuff was never with my grandmothers class... a chewed willow branch with "Scottish" dry powdery stuff applied to the gums was permissional.

I lived in a bordering house in Salem Virginia in the late 60's. The owners wife (who ran it!) had Scarlet Fever as a young teenager had snuff prescribed to over come the limitations of Scarlet Fever. The husband was the only one who didn't use tobacco. Her rule was you couldn't spit on the grass, and the one of only a few who could reach the street (17 feet away).(she dipped)

While I've used Scotch snuff (only inhaling like they did once upon a time) for a short time (more than 30 years ago)... I've never understood what smells like horse urined hay that people put in their lower lip! (I've used scrap and plug tobacco also)

Pat


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## TNnative (May 23, 2004)

EDDIE BUCK said:


> Never heard of that,getting your picture made with someone dead. If they ever made me get mine took with someone dead, it better have a fast shutter speed,cause when they set me down my feet wouldn't let me stay there long enough for a photo from a slow camera and even if the camera was fast everything would still be a blur all cept the corpse. lol Eddie


Puts me in mind of that Jerry Clower story, "Sitting Up With The Dead". :rotfl:


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

Knew several Gals that would Chew Twist.

You know you got a heck of Girlfried when she will swap SKOAL with you.:goodjob:

big rockpile


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

calliemoonbeam said:


> My grandma was born in 1887, and she used used snuff, most of the women in her age group did. I can remember when I was getting to be a snotty teenager, disliking having to kiss her because sometimes she'd have a little snuff residue in the corners of her mouth. I'd give a million dollars to kiss that snuffy mouth now! She died in 1984, and I still miss her every single day!


 You got that right. I loved my Grandma even if that "SUGAR" did have a little snuff mixed in it. And I knew who to run to when I got stung by a wasp or bee,Grandma, because she had the pain relief right there in her mouth.I never got to know my other Grandma and neither one of my Grandpas, and I,ve always felt like I come up short on that. So I've decided to hang around long enough to make sure I've seen all my grandkids and maybe the great ones too,that is if me and God is in agreement on how long I got. lol Eddie








TNnative said:


> Puts me in mind of that Jerry Clower story, "Sitting Up With The Dead". :rotfl:


 Yea BRP,I remember hearing him tell that. About walking the deadman cross the street to the beer joint and the deadman was the best dressed one in the whole place.:bouncy: LOL Eddie


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## J-jay (Feb 27, 2008)

People that dip snuff don' have WORMs, My MA diped and died at 80


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## edzz (Jun 21, 2008)

soulsurvivor said:


> Was the Tube Rose sold in a red paper can like that back in the 50s? cause I remember my grannie using her snuff from a can like that, but I could almost swear it was red paper outside instead of green.


Yes, but they called it a "bladder" sort of like a sausage.


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## huzzyjr (Apr 21, 2005)

Dh's grandma Moose (I really miss her) dipped until she could'nt anymore. She had alzheimers. His dad and a aunt still use Garret Sweet Snuff he's 81, she's 93 and no they have never had worms. LOL


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## mrs oz (Jul 3, 2007)

Yep, my great grandma Schrum dipped snuff. She always had a frayed twig and can in her apron pocket. Drove my grandma, her daughter, crazy. When she got really old, she lived to 98 I believe, they took it off her and wouldn't let her dip anymore. I always thought, she's been on the Earth for 90+ years.......give her the snuff if she wants it!! She was the neatest lady. Not quite 5' tall, mother to 9 boys and 1 girl (my grandma) and would fire your behind up if you got out of line. She was great!


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

Funny, my snuff using great-grandma lived to be 93!


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## Gregg Alexander (Feb 18, 2007)

My granny dipped Garret Snuff , had a coffee can with sand next to the fireplace , used gum brushes. She took her a little nip of shine every night before bed.


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## Peacock (Apr 12, 2006)

Never knew anyone who did this. But DH told a story about his grandpa - grandpa tricked him when he was little, told him his chewing tobacco was "dried raisins" and got him to take a bite. Ew!


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## OUVickie (Mar 8, 2003)

I remember my Granny smelling like snuff, but I don't remember seeing her use it. I did see a friends grandma using it all the time and she lived way up in her 90s too.
My Mom said my grandma used it when they were kids and also smoked a corn cob pipe. I do remember seeing the older men using plug tobacco.


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## Seeker (Sep 29, 2004)

My Granny dipped snuff up until she passed away (at 96). Seems to be a dying tradition, but she certainly 'observed it' for her life.


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## brewswain (Dec 31, 2006)

My grandmothers aunt dipped snuff when I was a kid.
I remember her. 
She was blind and confined to bed with a broken hip.
She died in 1955.
Later I found out that her father was a soldier in the War of Northern Aggression.
He came home from the War with dysentery and wouldn't let his family eat corn after the War.

He thought unripe corn had caused the dysentery.
One day when I was an infant, I wouldn't stop crying until she put her toothpick in my mouth!
That toothpick soaked in Snuff!!

I wish I could have asked her about life in her time.


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

My Grandma loved to talk just as much as the snuff. I liked to set and listen to her talk until you couldn't understand what she was saying because her mouth had got so full she was talking with her mouth shut. I would ask WHAT? as she was reaching for the can to spit.Then after she had spit she would say, I SAAAIIIID I HAD TO SPIT! Like she was aggravated that her ventriloquism lacked understanding. I sure do miss her and I sure hope St Peter checked them apron pockets, if not them golden streets might be in a mess,if she ain't found a can up there inside them Pearly Gates. lol Eddie


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