We interviewed Mrs G on December 1st, 1996. She was the first person we interviewed outside our own families and was introduced to us by one of the midwives Maryanne knew in the Midwives Association of Saskatchewan.
It turned out that the first story Mrs G had to share was about the home birth of one of her siblings, not the births of her own children. The first birth she describes took place in July 1928, when Mrs G was sixteen years old. I left her Russian syntax intact in the transcription as best I could.
Mrs G’s family lived in Purdue, Saskatchewan.
MARYANNE: Tell us just a little bit about yourself, your background, where you were born.
MRS G.: I was born in Perdue and I went to school there. After grade eight I went to academy. When I went home (on holiday) mum was getting larger. She didn’t tell me she was going to have a baby.
KAREN: Were you the oldest?
MRS G.: I was the oldest. There were four girls and four boys. When they (her parents) went away from home I was responsible. All the wood brought in, snow brought in, coal brought in, milk cows and everything.
When Mrs G came home on holiday from the Christian Academy she had begun attending in her grade 9 year, she noticed her mother was getting bigger. Her parents hadn’t told her they were expecting another baby. The excitement begins when Mrs G’s mother goes into labour.
MRS G.: I don’t know if mum sent my brother or if my dad came home from the field, I don’t know that, but I saw her whisper to him something and he just, when he came home he says I think I’ll just hook up the horses, it’ll be better and faster with the (unclear, but a type of horse carriage). So he went to my grandma, and my grandma just lived about a mile, maybe a little more from my place but when my dad got there she wasn’t home, so then he goes up to the road again and it makes two miles to go to another neighbour. She also was an elderly lady, Mrs Zerbuka. (phonetic spelling) While he was gone I was running around in the house, in a panic. I didn’t know what to do anyway.
KAREN: Did you know what was going on?
MRS G.: Well, I knew mum was going to have a baby. I knew because she was preparing. In olden days there were no plastics. They had oil cloths, you know it was kind of cloth on one side and you know she puts one on the bed and then a flannel sheet and then another sheet and she said “mmm, mmm” and I guessed then when father went away, I didn’t know where he went, you know I didn’t, but I realized afterwards that he went to get grandma.
KAREN: Did she tell you what was going on or did you just guess?
MRS G.: She didn’t tell me, she didn’t want to frighten me, I think. But she did tell me. She said “Do you want to have a little sister or a brother?” I said, “I have three brothers already!” You know. And “I have only two sisters.” So… No. I had four brothers. I would like to have another sister so there would be four boys and four girls. But anyway… She kind of told me but she didn’t say that she was having pains. She was kind of keeping it to herself and then when she noted that dad wasn’t coming she says, “L___, put the tea kettle on! Fill it up and put it on the stove!” And then I noted that she was going to bed, you know already laying down and she took off her dress and was just in a slip, you know that old-fashioned kind of slip and she was lying down, on to her side and I was trying not to look at her and yet from the side I’d kind of glance at her once in a while to see what she was doing.
And I did take St. John’s ambulance at the academy that same year. Anyway I had put the tea kettle on and mother says, while the tea-kettle boiled, “Take that jam can, put the scissors there and pour the water on the blades, not on the handles!” I think she didn’t want them to be hot.
She says, “Just pour the boiling water on the blades!” Well, I did that.
And then she says, “Near the sewing machine there is my old corset lace.” They were not slack lace, you know they were round and white. She was lying in bed already and then she’d stop talking for a while and just, “Mmm”. I guess she didn’t want to scream. I don’t get scared very easy, but this I just didn’t know what to do. Anyway. She said, “Cut some off from that corset lace!”
I said, “How much?” She says, “Oh about six inches.” Then she says “Cut another one.” So I did. And she says put it beside the jam can. So I did.
And I went to the kitchen to see if daddy was coming and I’m looking and I didn’t see him and she says in Russian, “L____, come here!” And then she took the sheet off and she says, “Hold the baby’s head!” Because the head was coming. And I didn’t know but it comes on the back. And she says “Hold the baby’s head! But safely!”
And so I was holding (laughs) it and she says, “But put it towards the diaper!” There was a diaper. And then all of a sudden she just slipped out and, and… Oh I… And mum said, “You’re not going to die!” Because I never saw that, the blood just rushed out and you know… It was easy. She came very fast.
And she was the tiniest baby of all. Her brother (she’s referring to her own younger brother) was 10lb 11oz. I had my son, he was 10lb 14 oz. This was just a little one. 6lb 7 or 7lb 6. Something like that. She was very tiny.
So I quickly put the baby on a little diaper there and she felt the cord and she says, “Tie right here.” She was lying down but she says, “Tie right there!” So I tied about that much from the cord, you know. And then she says, “Tie it right here too!” I don’t know why she says, I didn’t know that! But she says, “Tie it right here, too!” About an inch and a half apart. She says, “Do it tight! Do it tight!” And I knew how to do square knot because I was teaching Pathfinders Club and I knew how to do a square knot that’ll tie it tight. So.
And then she says, “Get the scissors and cut between the two knots!”
And I said, “Mum! They are your old sewing-machine scissors! They’re dull!”
She says, “No, cut!” So I grabbed the scissors and I started and I thought it would be just easy like a chicken gut. You know. Just like that. When I started to cut it was so hard! Like a gizzard!
I said, “Mum! I can’t!” She says, in Russian, “Cut! Cut!” And I said, “Will it hurt?” She says, “L___, cut! Cut!” Oh, I just got all hot. I was so frightened to see all that blood, well of course it was blood. Like chocolate, or whatever!
Anyway, then I wrapped up the baby. The placenta didn’t come out yet. By this time Mrs. Zerbuka walks in. And she just took over. She said, “Bring me a little basin and a towel and after that she took over. That’s all.”
MARYANNE: Were there other children in the house?
MRS G..: Well, my sister, she’s eight years younger than I am, and then my baby sister, she’s eight years younger than she is, but there was another little girl in between.
MARYANNE: Were they home in the house?
MRS G.: No. I think mother told them to go outside. Just myself in the house. That’s why it was so scary. I think my sister took her to the garden. If I’d have known, I would have asked her. I was talking to my sister just on her birthday. I don’t know where they were.
Maryanne: What year was that?
MRS G.: 1928, I think. She was born July 1928.
KAREN: Were you all born at home?
MRS G.: Yeah! Yeah.
KAREN: When your dad had gone for help originally, he went for your grandma?
MRS G.: Yes! But she wasn’t home.
KAREN: And is that who he would have gone for anyway? For all the other births, he went to look for your grandma?
MRS G.: Well, grandma did, and neighbour grandmas. I don’t know who she had.
KAREN: Was there a doctor who came?
MRS G.: Ooh yes. There was a doctor for, not my baby sister, but next to her.
KAREN: But that was sort of unusual. It had been neighbours who came?
MRS G.: Yeah. He was one who went to the homes.
KAREN: Okay.
MRS G.: He lived in town.
MARYANNE: Was Mrs Zerbuka a midwife?
MRS G.: No! No she was not a midwife. She was just an old lady.
MARYANNE: But she attended a lot of births in the community?
MRS G.: Yeah. I don’t know. But almost every mother tended to her daughter. Almost every mother did. Or mother-in-law. Because some of them were even from the old country, they were midwives. But I don’t know how many. I know she had Virginia with the doctor, but the rest of them, they were all at home. But that one too, he came to the house. She also had that one at home. I don’t think she had any in the hospital.
KAREN: Your dad wasn’t around for the birth? He stayed in a different room, did he?
MRS G.: Well, he was out, but when he came with Mrs. Zerbuka, he went and put the horses in the barn and when he came everything was already out. Just about. She was finished. She had the baby all cleaned up. She put oil on it first. And then a very mild soap to wash off that… Especially on the back, I remember on the back it was kind of like wax.
Mrs G caught another baby when she was 25. Read Part Two of her story here.
HOME BIRTH STORIES OF SASKATCHEWAN 