Mrs D lost her first husband, the father of the children in this story. The D in her name is her second husband’s name. She was 82 when Maryanne interviewed her on March 22, 1997. Mrs. D had married at 21 and had her first baby when she was 22, in 1937. She told Maryanne that she had seven children, one of whom she lost. She said she had all the boys at home. Maryanne, naturally I thought, assumed that meant all her first children were boys, but that isn’t the way it was.

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MRS D: I had one boy then a girl, then a boy, then another boy, and then another girl and then another boy, then a girl.

MARYANNE: So you lost one of those?

MRS D: Yes. He lived about a week, but I had the mumps when he was born and I don’t know whether that had something to do with it, but he wasn’t well. He looked very nice and chubby and well when he was born, you know but once he started to get hungry, you know, and he wanted to suck but he couldn’t seem to swallow or something. He cried and cried and cried until we finally had to take him into the hospital and that was about thirteen miles by horse and sleigh and they kept him in. When we went in to see how he was doing, he passed away and we brought home the body.

MARYANNE: That’s too bad. So they took him in and you stayed at home.

”That’s too bad.” Neither of us was short on empathy. Least of all Maryanne in this situation. This comment sounds a lot less abrupt on the tape. But we also took our cue from the subject’s demeanour as she described the event. If she was matter of fact about a painful memory, then so were we. If the memory was still painful, as it was for some, we stayed with the moment while she dealt with the emotion.

MRS D: Yeah. Oh yes, you used to have to stay in bed ten or twelve days.

MARYANNE: So they knew fairly quickly, you took him in soon after he was born?

MRS D: Yes, just a few days after he was born because he couldn’t seem to suck, take anything or swallow, or something. That’s the way it seemed to me. He just cried and cried, he was hungry and couldn’t feed so they took him in; my husband and my sister-in-law.

MARYANNE: Was he born at home then?

MRS D: Yes, he was born at home.

MARYANNE: So then all of your boys were born at home.

MRS D: All the boys were born at home.

MARYANNE: How did that happen? One at home and then the next one in the hospital and then back at home? There must have been some circumstances there.

MRS D: Ah, I don’t know, when the first one was born my sister said there was no hospital at the time. We were living north of Carrot River and Carrot River possibly didn’t have a hospital at the time and so, but the doctor came out.

MARYANNE: Do you remember the doctor’s name?

MRS D: I have tried to remember, but… I don’t think it was Dr. Newman. The other children were born with Dr. McConnell. (Phonetic spelling)

MARYANNE: So tell me about that first birth, with the first baby.

MRS D: Ah, well, we lived in a log house. I don’t know for sure how big it was. It was, I would say, about 18 feet wide and 24 feet long or something like that and it was all one room. I remember my brother was staying with us at the time because the men were working on the road. You know, building a road because it was all homesteads in the area there.

So on September 10, 1937, at six o’clock I woke up and I felt I had to go to the washroom and we didn’t have a washroom inside so I had to go outside to the outhouse and then I got a real sharp pain. I thought, “Boy that feels like something not quite the way it should be,” and before I went in I had another pain, another sharp pain and then I told my husband, I said, “I think this is it, you better go see that I get the doctor.”

I think my brother probably went to my husband’s family, like his parents. We always went across country or through the bush and it was only about three quarters of a mile. My parents lived six miles farther south towards Carrot River. And probably my brother went to let them know and my mother came out, I remember she was there too. There were no telephones, so they probably went to call the doctor then. The doctor, he had a car.

MARYANNE: Oh, he did?

MRS D: Yeah, he came out and the baby was born around 10 o’clock.

MARYANNE: At night?

MRS D: No, no in the morning.

MARYANNE: That was very fast then.

MRS D: Yeah, that wasn’t even all that bad. He did use instruments and I had to have stitches, but it wasn’t too bad.

MARYANNE: Did the doctor at that time use any ether or chloroform?

MRS D: Yes, he must have because I was out.

MARYANNE: So with you there was your mother?

MRS D: And mother-in-law, mm-huh.

MARYANNE: And was your husband there as well?

MRS D: Well, I don’t know if he was or not, probably he was.

MARYANNE: Somewhere in the room.

MRS D: Yeah.

MARYANNE: What part of the room would you have had the baby in?

MRS D: Well, it was all in one room. The bed was in that, it was living room, kitchen and everything.

MARYANNE: Were you having any difficulties at all?

MRS D: No.

MARYANNE: Nothing that you can remember? It was a fairly quick birth from six in the morning until …?

MRS D: Yes, I think too that it was pretty good.

MARYANNE: So you were living on the farm then, you were both farming at the time?

MRS D: Mm huh, the homestead was pretty well all bush yet. We didn’t have many acres for (unclear.)

MARYANNE: So what kind of work did you do while you were pregnant?

MRS D: Oh, just the regular. I had to do the washing on the (unclear) board. We didn’t have a washing machine and then we had lots of problems with water, we didn’t have a well. All our water we had to carry from quite a distance. I don’t think I did anything special, looking after the garden and that.

MARYANNE: Right. What kind of clothing did women wear and what did you wear then during your pregnancy, for maternity clothes?

MRS D: Well, I remember my sister, like my older sister, she lived at home, and she did a lot of sewing. She sewed me two maternity dresses. I didn’t have smocks, not that I can remember.

MARYANNE: Did you sew any of your own clothing?

MRS D: No.

MARYANNE: So they sewed that.

MRS D: Well I didn’t have a sewing machine.

MARYANNE: How was it for you at that time because that was depression times? Were you struggling at the time, were you well off?

MRS D: Oh no, we were poor, very poor.

MARYANNE: Tell me a little bit about your husband, we want to know about the fathers.

MRS D: What do you want to know?

MARYANNE: What did he look like, what did he feel like about having your first baby, those kinds of things.

MRS D: Oh! I think he was not disappointed at all. And ah, cause every month I was so sick when I had my periods. The doctor said that if I have a child that would probably clear it up because nothing seemed to… they couldn’t do anything for me. Every month I was really sick and that’s what happened after I had the baby, for many months I didn’t have my period, that really helped. Well, my husband was just a short man, maybe an inch or two taller than I was and a little bit on the stocky side.

MARYANNE: And he was a farmer.

MRS D: Yeah.

MARYANNE: So what kind of farm did you have then, did you have cows, did you have animals to look after?

MRS D: Oh well, at that time we just had, we had two cows and it seems to me a sheep and chickens.

MARYANNE: Would you have gotten some of those cows when you got married as a gift?

MRS D: Yeah, he had one cow and I got one cow when I got married and we both went to work for my Dad. They were digging a ditch by hand from Carrot River through the muskeg for a drainage ditch. Dad really wanted to feed the gang and so my husband and I, we both went to cook there. We got married in July and then by October, my sister—another sister—she wasn’t married yet but she had been working out (I’m assuming she means her sister had been doing a job for someone) and she was finished her work and so she could help cook. And then my husband was going to work on the road, like the others were doing, or digging. And because he didn’t take relief, he hadn’t taken relief, they wouldn’t hire him. And then so he had to go home and he went home. I went home too, I didn’t stay. And then for the wages that we got… We hadn’t talked about wages at all and Dad gave us a pig and a lamb and things that we needed.

MARYANNE: Those are important things. Did you have any horses?

MRS D: No, at that time we didn’t have any horses.

MARYANNE: How did you get around?

MRS D: Well, we walked, but I remember after we had the child then we had a small pony, and we had a cart, a two-wheeled cart. But before we had that I remember we went visiting and I rode on the horse and held the baby and he walked or led the horse.

MARYANNE: Tell me a little bit about when you were pregnant, did you visit the doctor at all during your pregnancy?

MRS D: Can’t remember.

MARYANNE: Did you have plans for what was going to happen when you had the baby, like was it the plan that the mothers would come and the doctor would come, or had you thought about it at all?

MRS D: Well, probably we had talked about it and made those arrangements.

MARYANNE: Did you know at all what it was going to be like to have a baby about the pains, what it was going to be like?

MRS D: Not really.

MARYANNE: You weren’t prepared for it at all? So when it started, what did you think?

MRS D: Well, I had those pains and I thought, “well this must just be the time.”

MARYANNE: Did your mother ever tell you about what it would be like?

MRS D: I don’t think so.

MARYANNE: That’s a common thing we’ve heard that not many mothers told their daughters at that time, even my mother didn’t really tell me about it. How did you cope with the pain? Did mother, did somebody help you? Was somebody massaging or talking or how did you cope with it?

MRS D: I guess they just prepared the bed for me and it can’t have taken too long before the doctor came.

MARYANNE: And the doctor, did he have to wait long or did he come near the end already?

MRS D: It must have been because I don’t remember much about the doctor. He must have put me out and after it was born I remember hearing the doctor before he left.

MARYANNE: So how long would you wake up after, would it be a long time after or an hour?

MRS D: No, it couldn’t have been very long because I was kind of coming to before the doctor left.

MARYANNE: Oh, I see. Do you remember how you felt when they brought the baby to you and said, “you have a son.”

MRS D: Well, I guess I was glad it was over. (Laughs)

MARYANNE: Yes, I remember that feeling very strongly. In fact, with my last baby that’s the first thing I said, “it’s over!” Okay, so you felt your husband was probably around somewhere?

MRS D: He probably was, yeah.

MARYANNE: He didn’t go away or anything like that?

MRS D: No, no.

MARYANNE: Now, you chose to have your baby at home, was there any other choice for you or was that just the way it was done?

MRS D: Well, like I said, my sister said she thought there hadn’t been a hospital yet in Carrot River.

MARYANNE: How far were you from Carrot River?

MRS D: About thirteen miles and so probably there was no other choice but for the doctor to come out. He used to come out, that’s one thing. But I only had the doctor.

MARYANNE: Can you tell me did you have to pay the doctor?

MRS D: I don’t remember that.

MARYANNE: Okay.

MRS D: I don’t know how we could have. We didn’t have any money so I don’t really know how that worked at the time.

MARYANNE: And after the baby, what were sort of the routines after the baby? I know you mentioned that you would have to stay in bed ten days. Who would look after you?

MRS D: My mother-in-law, she came every morning to bath the baby. I don’t know. Yes, yes it seems to me we had a girl, the neighbour girl, yeah, she stayed with me, my husband couldn’t stay with me all the time.

MARYANNE: Did you nurse your babies?

MRS D: Yes.

MARYANNE: And everything went okay there?

MRS D: Yes. The first while anyway. My milk wasn’t very rich though, and it wasn’t doing too well, so I had to put him on the bottle.

MARYANNE: After the baby was there any sort of thing done in the community, did anybody come with gifts or food or things like that? Or the community was probably very spread out?

MRS D: Well, no, I would say that the neighbours were quite thick and close because everybody had taken up a homestead, one quarter, so there were lots of people around not too far away.

MARYANNE: But mostly it was your family that would come to help?

MRS D: Yeah.

MARYANNE: What kind of diapers did you use back then, I’m curious?

MRS D: I remember we had flannelette diapers.

MARYANNE: So you had to wash those by hand?

MRS D: Oh yes.

MARYANNE: That must have been a lot of work especially with this water problem you mentioned.

MRS D: Yes. Yeah, that was a big problem and in winter we had to thaw snow and use that for washing.

MARYANNE: What kind of soap did you use? Did you make your own soap?

MRS D: Yes, we had homemade soap.

MARYANNE: Isn’t that interesting! So tell me the next baby was born in the hospital, the second baby?

MRS D: Ah, yes.