I interviewed Mrs. B in February, 1997, when she was 84 years old. As we drove home from the presentation we’d given at St. Anne’s Place, Maryanne said Mrs B must have been a leader of some kind all her life. I agreed. Our project had drawn a lot of interest. Mrs. B got all the ladies organized in their seats; she was the first to speak up with comments, and the first to sign up to tell her story. She took charge of this interview, as well. All I really had to do was offer a brief prompt, and then I could just sit back and listen as Mrs. B relived every moment.

Be aware, Mrs. B’s style is a white water stream of consciousness.

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KAREN: Downstairs when we were talking, you had a different perspective on things that we hadn’t heard before. You were talking about home birth and the effect it had on the children. Do you mind following through on that? Tell me a little bit about why you thought it was important.

MRS B.: Why I felt it was important was that in those days, children weren’t as knowledgeable as they are these days about childbirth and where babies came from.

I remember one instance where Mother was doing her work as usual and I hadn’t noticed she was big because they wore big aprons in those days, gathered up and she was quite a healthy lady. She used to say because she came from good English stock of course. It was supper-time and she was hurrying us with our supper and then she said we’ll leave the dishes and then she said to my brother, “You go to the drugstore and see if the doctor’s in and tell him I’ll be meeting him in about twenty-minutes, half an hour.”

And then she told my older sister E____ to take the two-year old and the six-year old and take them across the street to the neighbour’s and wait there till someone told her she could come home.

Then she told me to take the four-year old and the eight-year old and go to another neighbour’s on the corner and wait there till someone told us we could come home. And when we asked why she said, “Well I’ll tell you when you come home. For now it’s enough that you do as you’re told. Now go! You’ve had your supper.”

KAREN: How old were you? Were you the oldest?

MRS B.: No, I had an older brother and an older sister.

And so then we went over and Mother said, “Now you’ve been fed so they don’t have to feed you so just sit quiet and keep the kids in order.”

And then of course we were there and I remember this one instance, the old lady, she said, “Come on, let’s sit out on the verandah.” She had a little verandah and we went out there and sat. I was holding one of the kids on my lap and the other was sitting down by me. While we there we saw a star fall from the Heavens and she said, “Oh, did you see that star fall?”

And I said yes and she said, “Well, that’s a sign a new baby has been born!” And she said, “Now I wonder who’s going to have a new baby?” She knew.

And of course we didn’t and she said, “That’s a sign.” And I said, “Well I’ve often seen a star fall.” She said, “Well, there are many babies born in the world.”

And so it happened later my father came and got us and took us home and we told him about the star that fell and that it meant there was a new baby born and he said, “Yes! That’s right!”

And I said “Dad, do you know of a new baby that’s been born?” And he said, “Yes, we have a new baby in our house!”

And of course I go home and I’m so astounded that we’ve got a new baby in our house because I knew nothing about it, and now my mother, who only an hour and a half before was standing in the kitchen saying, “Now you go over there!” and she was perfectly well, nothing wrong with Mother, she’s in bed! And she can’t get up for ten days!

And now there’s this strange lady there who came to care for Mother while she was confined and there was us children standing around and Father saying, “Now you get the little ones undressed and in their nighties and you get them into bed and see that they say their prayers.”

And… well, “Why is Mother in bed?” And of course Dad said, “She’s in bed because she’s got a new baby!” But we couldn’t connect, we knew nothing about childbirth! We couldn’t connect that baby with Mother having to be in bed!

And Mother says, “Now do as your dad says and get the children ready for bed. And then you do your homework and you get into bed.”

And I remember my older sister and I lying in bed and saying, “Well, mama was just standing by the stove and she told us to go! And now she’s in bed for ten days! Why?” We were frightened a little bit.

And then the next day, when we got up we had to go to school but there were still two little kids at home. We got the little kids dressed and I remember going into the bedroom, Mother’s bedroom was on the main floor and I was scared to go into the bedroom.

And then Mother says, “What is it? What is it?” And I said, “Well mama why are you in bed? Did you hurt yourself?” And she said no and I looked at her and she had no bandages on her or anything and there was a smell I couldn’t place. It was that newborn smell, I guess, the flannelette of the baby’s gowns. And I couldn’t place it and she said, “Well, I have to stay in bed for ten days.”

And I said, “But why, mama?”

And she said, “Because the doctor said.”

And I said, “But what’s the matter with you? Have you got scarlet fever or something?” “No, no,” she said. “I’ll explain it all to you later. “Now,” she said, you get yourselves and the kids dressed and get your hair combed and get off to school!”

And then my sister and I would go to school and we would say, “Well that’s strange! What could have happened to mama?”

And you know, Father never ever (stroked? unclear) my mother. In fact he never even kissed her, not that I saw, they were such private people. And so we never thought of that, we just could not understand why Mother could be in bed ten days and we had just seen her an hour and a half before.

It was hard on kids, you know. And the station agent’s wife sent down that tray and on the tray there were some goodies for Mother and I remember there was a tall glass dish and in it was some little fancy pudding and some whipping cream and a cherry right on top. And only one? Why was Mother getting that? You know? We loved our Mother dearly, but in our home we shared everything! And why was Mother getting that? And then the lady who was caring for her would carry it in and then we just wondered, “Why?” Those were things that children nowadays don’t have to worry about. They learn all too soon where babies come from but we had no idea.

KAREN: Let me just ask you one thing. You lived in town?

MRS B.: In a small town.

KAREN: Had you farmed at all?

MRS B.: No, no. No, we lived right in town and never farmed. If we’d farmed we would have known about birth and that. (Which is exactly what I was getting at.)

KAREN: Was this common, then, amongst your friends, that they would have known as little as you did?

BEA: Yes I think so, …

Which is not to say they never came up with their own theories: When Bea was about eleven, her class mate, a little girl with a pronounced lisp, told her that babies were made when the father peed inside the mother and the pee turned into a baby. How did she know this? Bea asked, thoroughly horrified. Because, her friend said, she’d often heard her father saying, “Oh, he’s nothing but pith and vinegar.”

KAREN: (After a short break to recover…) So where did you think babies did come from?

MRS B.: Every time the doctor came he had this little satchel, which would be a little bigger than this, (gestures) soft leather, with a little leather handle. I guess he had his chloroform in there and his instruments, and he’d always be carrying that and it was about the length of a little baby.

Photo is of a flea market find. Identified by the seller as a doctor’s bag of this time period.

And we just thought that whenever the doctor came to the house, he was bringing the baby. We didn’t know there was going to be a baby until we got older and then Mother would say, “There’s going to be a new baby in our house and I want you to do this and I want you to do that.”

And we knew very well to watch for the doctor because E___ had seen the doctor come to our house and she had seen him come in with the little bag and so we knew the baby had been in that bag.

It’s amazing you know. You go back over the years and I remember when my brother J___ was born, I was only four and half. My birthday was in May and he was born on the 28th of November. I remember distinctly my father coming from work and when he came from work he had with him a strange lady and we didn’t know her. She was a stranger to us.

We lived in a two story house and it was very cold in winter because they weren’t heated. Only the kitchen stove chimney went up to the top and there wasn’t enough heat. In the fall my dad would move the beds down into the living room and my dad and mum’s bed would be in one portion and us children’s bed would be in another and then the pot-bellied heater was there and that kept us nice and warm and cosy and we loved that when the beds were moved down. We felt we were all together and Mother had put up a little curtain and so when we went to sleep at night the coal oil (unclear) lamp wouldn’t disturb our sleep by shining on our faces.

And I remember dad coming with this strange lady. I think it was bread and milk we were having for supper because we had a lot of that when we were kids. You put the warm milk on the bread and put some sugar on top of it. And my dad was telling us, “Come on now, eat up your supper” when mama and the strange lady disappeared!

And then we looked for her and she wasn’t in the living room and we heard her going upstairs and we said to dad, “Why is mama going upstairs? It’s cold up there?” And dad says, “Well, she won’t be up there very long, she’ll be down in a little while.” And he says, “Now you go on and eat your supper.”

And I don’t remember hearing any noise from upstairs, any labour pains or any moaning or groaning. Nothing! No noise at all. And when we were there my dad was trying to wash the dishes that we had used for our supper and down the stairs came this woman and she had wrapped up in her arms this bundle and it was making that new noise that babies make that sounds like “Waah, waah,” you know? It doesn’t sound like a baby cry. Of course we wondered what it was and she came up to my dad and she said, “Well, you’ve got a boy this time.” After three girls, like there was a boy to start with and three girls and this was a boy and so my dad said, “Well, I’ve got one to help me at my work and my wife has three to help her with her work!” And he was very proud of this boy…

The continuity of this story went awry. This birth occurred about seven years before the first one she described.

MRS B.: …he took it in his arms, he dearly loved newborn babies. And then he bent down and he showed it to us and he said, “This is your new brother.” And of course, we saw the strange lady give it to dad and we thought, we’ll go and tell mama that we’ve got a new brother! “No, no, no! You can’t go upstairs! It’s too cold, just leave that!” And then so she left the baby with dad for a few minutes and she disappeared and went upstairs again and then she came back down and then she said to dad, “I’ve turned the bed back and I’ll clean the baby up now.”

And then dad disappeared. And then next we knew, he was carrying Mother down! And Mother was little and he was a big man and he was carrying her down the stairs.

KAREN: She was little? And yet… I get the impression she was pregnant every two years?

MRS B.: Yes.

KAREN: She would always have been seen with a big tummy?

MRS B.: Yes.

KAREN: I was thinking of her as a big woman.

MRS B.: Oh no, no she wasn’t. So then he carried her down and put her in the bed and covered her up and I remember seeing my dad kissing her then. I guess he was so pleased that everything went well and then he came into the kitchen and the lady was finished bathing the baby and he took it into Mother and Mother had it nestled down beside her and I don’t recall that there was a basket for the baby in those days.

Later years she had a clothes basket and all I knew was that we went in and we wanted to get up on the bed with Mother and this strange lady said, “No, you can’t get up there and she grabbed us and took us down and we couldn’t understand why our mother was in bed and why this lady was bossing us around, you know.

And then my dad was trying to get us undressed and into our nightgowns and into our bed but we wanted to be there with Mother and we wanted to show her the new baby. We didn’t think she knew about it.

And it just shows you the things that go through little children’s minds. And had we known, it would have been a whole lot better.

KAREN: You think so? So you’re in favour of children knowing a little bit more?

MRS B.: Yes, I think so, I think they should know. Well, they do know now. They learn in school. When my great-granddaughter, who’s eight now, when her mom was expecting, she let her feel her stomach and feel the movement and she knew her mother was going to have a baby. A brother or a sister and she knew it was in her mother’s tummy. Well you see, I never told my children that!

Read Part Two of Mrs. B’s story.

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