Rooting for Freedom

Two curious women, two curious tales. Following them on their journeys will be the highlight of your day.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
The things that we endure shape our identities, for better
or for worse. What we go through influences our future decisions.
If we don't learn from our mistakes, history is bound
to repeat itself. During one of the darkest periods in
American history, one young girl refused to let injustice sully
her spirit. It all began on an afternoon in eighteen

(00:57):
thirty five, twelve year old Aramenta entered a bustling shop
in Maryland. As she stood near the counter, she noticed
a plantation overseer arguing with a teenage boy. The Civil
War hadn't broken out in the US yet, and the
boy was enslaved, just like Aramenta. She couldn't help but
listen in on their dispute. Apparently, the boy had run

(01:18):
away from the plantation. Now it was the overseer's job
to bring him back. Their arguments escalated, and the man
lunged to grab the boy, but the boy turned and ran,
evading the man's grip by a hare. In a fit
of rage, the overseer grabbed a two pound brick from
a nearby shelf and he hurled it toward the boy,
but his aim was off. Instead, it struck Arimenta on

(01:40):
the head with a sickening thud. She collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Blood trickled from the wound as she lay motionless. Indifferent
to her condition, the overseer left Aramenta to be helped
by others. Floating between life and death, she was sent
to her mother's home to heal. When she finally regained consciousness,
the world seemed blurry and distant. Her head throbbed with

(02:02):
every heartbeat. For months, her mother nursed her back to health.
Aramenta recovered for the most part, but the injury was
life changing. From that day forward, she suffered from severe
headaches and seizures, but she was resilient. After this traumatic event,
Aramenta wanted to ensure that others didn't suffer the way
that she did, so she turned to the art of

(02:23):
healing in order to become an expert healer. Aramenta started
learning everything she could about plants and herbs. Enslave people
often relied on plants for medicinal purposes, drawing on traditional
knowledge passed down through generations. She had learned many of
these skills from her mother. She could treat infectious diseases,
including smallpox, with a home brew Aramenta was also in

(02:46):
a unique position because she spent more time away from
the plantation than others were able to. Therefore, she could
explore and experiment with plant life. Thereby perfecting her recipes.
Aramenta became famous among other enslaved people or her medical acumen.
Eventually she gained attention from people outside her community. After
the Civil War broke out in eighteen sixty one, the

(03:07):
Union Army asked her to join their efforts as a nurse,
and this was a huge deal for someone who had
lived most of their life on a plantation. But Aramenta
was one of the lucky few who could leave, so
she slipped away to join Union forces. It was risky,
but Aramenta had survived scary things before. She was brave.
In her new role. She used herbal remedies to treat

(03:29):
wounded soldiers. Even though she was in a new environment
and still suffering from her head trauma, she quickly learned
to forage for the kinds of plants she needed. Because
of this, one colonel noticed how well equipped she was
out in the rugged wilderness, so he came to her
with a daring request. He wanted her to help raid
nearby plantations and free the enslaved people there. Aramenta was

(03:52):
more than ready for the challenge. Throughout the rest of
the war, she helped rescue over seven hundred people. She
was a hero, and she did it all while managing
headaches and seizures. As heroic as she was, Aramanta couldn't
go on living like this. She had so much more
she wanted to do in life. Following the war, many
freed people still needed medical care, and countless families hoped

(04:14):
to reunite. Araminta could help them, but she needed to
put an end to her own pain first, so she
traveled to Boston for brain surgery. She was eager to
get it over with, but once she went into the
operating room, there was a problem. Modern comforts for pain reliefs,
such as anesthesia, weren't available. Resourceful as ever, Araminta asked

(04:35):
the doctor for a bullet. He was naturally confused, so
she explained that during the war she had seen soldiers
bite down on bullets as a way to cope with
painful procedures. So this was how Aramenta withstood brain surgery
and survived. Go ahead and add that to the list
of courageous feats, right. Aramanta went on to continue healing
people just like she wanted, except no one called her

(04:57):
Araminta anymore. That's because earlier in her life, after escaping enslavement,
she marked the occasion with a new name. She took
her mother's first name and her husband's last name, and
that's how she became known as Harriet Tubman. Confidence is key,

(05:27):
whether you're going into an interview for a new job
or climbing Mount Everest, it's important to put faith in yourself.
Like the Little Engine that Could always said I think
I can. I think I can. In fact, sometimes confidence
can help us achieve great things when the deck is
stacked against us. It's the boost that we need to
overcome the odds and achieve greatness. And when we're confident

(05:48):
in our skills, we have no problem taking on a
difficult task without question. We might even tell the other
person that we can do it with one hand tied
behind our backs. Well, for some people, that extra challenge
isn't so many metaphorical. For one woman, it was her
daily life. Her name was Anastasia Amelianova Igorova and she
was born in the Soviet Union in nineteen twelve. Her

(06:10):
young life was plagued by tragedy, with her father dying
when she was only nine. She was left at an
orphanage by her mother just a few years later. Anastasia
grew up committing crimes both large and small to get by.
She stole and she panhandled. But in nineteen twenty seven,
her whole life changed. A tragic fall from an automobile
left her permanently disfigured, unable to secure help from the government,

(06:34):
and refusing to become a collective farm worker for the
Soviet Union, Anastasia did what she always did. She found
a way to survive. She set out on her own,
traveling despite her injuries. But this wasn't something really done
by people in her condition or in her country. But
Anastasia wasn't like anyone else. She was fiercely independent, choosing

(06:54):
to venture out into the world and overcome her circumstances.
She traveled throughout Ukraine and the Caucuses, covering much of Russia,
with little to her name except her will and her wits.
In nineteen forty five, toward the end of World War II,
she found her way into Poland. Of course, Anastasia didn't
speak the language, but she managed to skirt by and
make her way to Austria, now Allied territory. It was

(07:17):
here where she was temporarily imprisoned in a refugee camp
for displaced persons before she was released. Back on the road,
she traveled to Yugoslavia. Her final stop was Italy. Sadly,
she experienced a decline in her mental state that resulted
in being committed to a facility in Naples. That's where
the Soviets rediscovered her. Their plan was to take her

(07:37):
back to her home country as part of an initiative
to search for and retrieve former citizens for repatriation. Well,
Anastasia knew what would happen if she told them the truth,
so she fed them a line about being taken by
the Germans and shuttled all over Europe. And Asia, satisfied
with her tale of woe, the Soviet authorities whisked her
back home and placed her in the custody of her

(07:58):
mother and brother, people she had seen in years, and
that's where her story pretty much ends. Little is known
of her life after her epic journey had come to
a close. The Soviets instituted a number of rules and
laws to prevent tramping the vagrant kind, not the levacious kind,
so it's likely that Anastasia settled down and lived the
rest of her life in her homeland. It's a shame

(08:20):
that more people don't know about her trek across multiple
continents because the car accident she survived didn't just injure her.
It had taken something from her. That fall from the
car had damaged her leg so badly it had to
be amputated, but she never let it keep her down.
Anastasia managed to travel thousands of miles on one leg,
using various crutches and walking aids. There were no prosthetics

(08:43):
available to her, so she may do with what she
had and came back with a heck of a story
to tell her estranged family. She had survived on her
own as a one legged traveler, kicking but metaphorically, of course.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

(09:03):
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the

(09:25):
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.