MARYANNE: That was a long labour.

MRS D: It was. It was a long labour. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.

KAREN: Had you known before, what to expect?

MRS D: No. No, I didn’t. Well, I knew, how the baby had to come and all that but…

KAREN: Had you talked about labour and delivery with anyone before?

MRS D: Not really, no. Those days, you didn’t talk about things like that. And people never told anyone they were even pregnant until they had to. It’s a lot different to the way things are now. I know my great-grandson come to see me and he’s sitting beside me and he says, “Grandma, have you a baby in there?” (Laughs)

MARYANNE: Did your grandmother ever tell you anything about it?

MRS D: She didn’t really tell me anything about it. She was just there to deliver the baby. And do with the baby whatever had to be done after it came, like tying the cord and stuff like that.

KAREN: Did this lack of knowledge beforehand leave you feeling afraid in any way? Or was it just something that had to be done? How did you feel about that?

MRS D: I didn’t feel a bit afraid or anything. I just felt, well, everybody has babies. So what can go wrong you know? But afterwards, when it took so long and the doctors were a long ways off… Our nearest doctor was in Dundurn, nearly nine miles west of Hanley, so it would have been too late to get any help, but what could I do? She came right. After she was born she had a deep, deep scar right across the forehead where she was stuck right there, that’s why I had the tear I suppose.

MARYANNE: She was all right, though?

MRS D: She was all right. She was a real healthy, big baby. I was scared of her at first. Right away, right after grandma gave her back to me to nurse, she lifted her head. I thought, “what? Babies aren’t supposed to do that.”

MARYANNE: She was saying, “I gotta have a look here. It took me so long to get out.”

MRS D: (laughing) That’s right!

MARYANNE: But she must have been a strong baby.

MRS D: She was. She was very strong. She could stand on her feet at a couple of months if I held her up. And she slept and slept and slept. She ate and she slept.

MARYANNE: So did you nurse your babies?

MRS D: Yes I did. About nine months.

KAREN: Were you living on a farm at the time?

MRS D: Yes, we were.

MARYANNE: So the farm was the house that had the cracks in the ceiling?

MRS D: Yes. Whoever built, they put the plasterboard on the ceiling and they left it. Wide spaces like that, never taped it or plastered it or anything. Well, by the time my daughter was born we had taped up the ceiling but of course we hadn’t put anything up there, either.

MARYANNE: It must have been cold.

MRS D: It was.

MARYANNE: Were you worried about that, for the baby?

MRS D: No. In those days, the custom was to have a nice big feather quilt, a big square one. You put your baby in that, put the bottom up, then wrapped the two sides around it, then tied it all up like a papoose, you know, like you see in pictures of (First Nations) babies? So she never was cold. We never had a cold, either. Just, in the morning, we wake up and there was frost on the blanket, on our quilt.

MARYANNE: So I’m sure you must have experienced forty below days as well.

MRS D: Oh yes, those winters were hard, they were not mild.

There follows a discussion of how hard the winters were, how there was so much snow. We didn’t transcribe it, but it might be interesting to listen to now that we are so much more aware of climate change than we were in 1997.

MARYANNE: Can we go back to the birth for a minute. Where was your husband?

MRS D: He was home.

MARYANNE: Was he in the room when you had the baby or…?

MRS D: He was in the house. But I’m not sure he was in the room, I don’t think he wanted to be.

Her memory of her first baby’s birth wasn’t accurate. It had been inaccurate for fifty five years. She only found out because her husband, unbeknownst to Maryanne and I, was listening in on the interview from the kitchen.

KAREN: It wasn’t the custom, then, was it?

MRS D: Well, I don’t think it was a custom, he didn’t know what I had to go through. He was kind of scared, staying in the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to see it all.

MARYANNE: Did he come in then, afterwards?

MRS D: Oh yes. Once the baby came he was there.

MARYANNE: He must have been very happy. Relieved that it was over.

MRS D: Oh yes. (Laughs) I never even thought to ask him that.

MARYANNE: And how did you feel? Right after? Can you recall any feelings right after the baby came?

MRS D: Well, once the baby came, everything was fine. I felt okay and then of course she took the afterbirth and buried it somewhere, I don’t know where. And she took the baby into the kitchen, like we had the living room and the kitchen. And she closed off the bedroom. I was wishing I could see what she was doing with the baby, I couldn’t see that and she didn’t tell me until she had her all cleaned up and brought her back to me.

MARYANNE: She must have bathed her?

MRS D: She must have, I don’t know what all she did.

MARYANNE: Can you remember that moment? Your feelings when she brought the baby to you?

MRS D: Like I say, she was lifting her head and I was scared. I thought, “This is not normal.”

MARYANNE: How old were you, at the time you had the baby?

MRS D: I think I was twenty.

KAREN: I was wondering if you felt a sense of pride or…

MRS D: I was glad it was all over and I was happy that she was okay, and everything went well.