Early 19th Century: to put
an end to: wedging or blocking
something so as to make inoperative

Oxford Living Dictionary

Last Friday, I met Diane Cooke Wright Green from Bean Station. She came by with her husband, Bryan Green, and her cousin, Donna Allen. They came to buy some of my mom, Bonnie Heiskell Peters’ books.

Everybody’s family has saying that they have, almost like a code which started so far back that we don’t really know where they came from. In the 1940s, Diane’s Grandmother, Maggie Cook Cooke (She married her third cousin) used to pick up my mother, her sister, Johnnie Heiskell Merritt and their mother, Elsie Seymour Turner Heiskell on Hickory Star Road to attend services at Alder Springs Baptist Church. The girls wore dresses made by their mothers, saddle oxfords and turned down white anklet socks.
Mamaw, Mom said, would wear dresses made by her daughter-in- law, Naomi Raley Heiskell. (Diane said that her grandmother sewed her family’s clothes, too.) They would start walking and the Cooke family would stop and pick them up. James E. “Jim” stayed home and worked the farm. Mrs. Cooke and daughters Juanita, Bonnie (Diane’s Mom). Marie, Trula, Anna Lou, Dorothy and Dana would stop and let my grandmother, my mom and my aunt squish in. Eleven! Yes, eleven in one car!

I reckon if you are on your way to worship, you feel extra safe. Alder Springs was at the bottom of the hill and the Cooke’s brakes weren’t so good, so in the back floorboard of the car was a big rock. As soon as Mrs. Cooke stopped the car, to let in the Heiskells, her oldest daughter Juanita would leap out of the car with the rock. Mrs. Cooke would holler, “Scotch It, Juanita! Scotch It!’ Juanita would wedge the rock under the front wheel, preventing the car from careening down the road.

There must have been many prayers said before they even got to the church service! I hope Juanita received a special blessing for being quick on her feet and ”scotching it”!