Women's History Month ~ Ozarks Hills and Hollows Granny Women

My 2nd great-grandmother, Nancy Smith Johnson, was a Granny Woman. She practiced midwifery and the healing arts in the hills and hollows of Donald County, Missouri. Her obituary notes, "The nights were never too dark nor the times too hard for Nancy Johnson to willingly lend a helping hand in time of need. She could count the dozens of babies she helped into the world and the lives she practically saved. Her cheerful disposition and pleasant smile made her most enjoyable to all around her."

Nancy was short and petite, with black hair, a thin face, a sharp jutting chin, and high cheekbones. She bore five children: Chloe Adele, Eva Oder, Otis Benjamin, Ollie Francis, and Osie May. She passed away in 1949 at Rocky Comfort, Missouri. Her parents were Benjamin Franklin and Anna Smith. Here is a photo of her with her daughter, Ollie. 

 

Her Smith family sailed from England to settle in the British Colonies before migrating to Northern Missouri. Here is a photo of the Benjamin Smith family.

In 1943, her daughter, Ollie, returned to the old home place to care for Nancy. This photo is of Nancy, her husband, Tom, Ollie, Ollie's son and two sons. The little boy standing is my father. 

Women have always been the backbone of families. They served many roles, including caring for their children, husbands, elderly parents, siblings, neighbors, and friends. Homemakers did not need a job outside the home, for homemaking included everything from making soap and doing the laundry to caring for the needy and the ill to helping perform the farm work when needed.  

 

In days long gone, women learned from their mothers and grandmothers how to care for the sick and help bring babies into the world. Their medicine usually came from the earth; the plants, flowers, and trees provided remedies to cure the sick and afflicted.

 

The most knowledgeable and experienced of these women were healers and midwives, often called Granny Women. They were known everywhere for their giving service and helping hands. Folks depended upon them to come when the need arose, and they relied on the Granny Woman's unique knowledge of herbs, roots, and concoctions. Those women had the skills and the wisdom to use the native plants for healing.

 

In the early days, doctors sometimes traveled a great distance to reach a patient, which was a hindrance for the gravely ill. Before the turn of the century, many doctors needed to be trained about germs and their deadly consequences. The states lacked standardized licensing requirements, and the quality of their education varied, so their medical practices were managed with crude effectiveness. 

 

Many women preferred the familiar Granny Woman to treat them with mild herbal remedies and deliver their babies. Traditional midwives met the concern for modesty during the birthing process, an important consideration in areas where the use of male doctors might offend an entire community.

 

 Some midwives carried a "midwife's book" to reference when complicated childbirth procedures arose. Sometimes, they used superstitious rituals to give mothers psychological relief, such as having the mother hold something that belonged to her husband to symbolically bring him into the delivery room. Their use of herbal remedies and teas helped speed up the birth process. Still, they might also use morphine tablets or quinine if the medicine was available.

 

 After the baby's birth, the Granny Woman might stay a week or longer to help with the housework and allow the new mother time to heal.

 

 Many times, Granny Women were not paid with money. Instead, they accepted whatever offering the family could provide at the time, possibly giving her meat or chickens, vegetables from the garden, or enough material to make a dress. If the family had nothing, that was all right, too.

 

As midwives became certified within their home state, they could charge money to attend births. The going rate in 1906 was $3.00. Granny Women knew how to prepare herbs, roots, tree bark, and other native plants and flowers to make healing ointments, teas, poultices, and concoctions. 

 

For example, Southwest Missouri Ozarks midwives combined sage, peppermint, black walnut, slippery elm bark, pokeroot, horseradish, elderberries, and dill weed with honey, black strap molasses, lard, onions, vinegar, and whiskey to make tonics, potions, plasters, poultices, and teas. Many a child with an earache had tobacco smoke blown into their ears as a cure. (I’m one of those children.)

 

The Missouri Medical College was initially organized in 840 as the Medical Department of Kemper College. It was the first medical school established west of the Mississippi River. In 1845, it became the Medical Department of the University of Missouri. There are a few midwives listed on the Missouri History Program website, all of whom lived in St. Louis, Missouri, for the years 1888-1892.

 

The American Medical Association was founded in 1847, and doctors eventually began to resent midwives. They looked upon the granny women as competition for business. The medical profession grew and insisted upon education, standard examination procedures, and licensing requirements for all practicing physicians. Doctors waged a campaign throughout the nation to run midwives out of business. They portrayed the women as being ignorant of medical procedures and lacking cleanliness.

 

Even though European countries were establishing schools of midwifery, American doctors were refusing to admit women to medical schools. When the American Medical Association demanded that all people practicing medicine be trained and licensed, midwifery was demolished.  

 

However, Granny Women continued to use their skills to serve their communities into the twentieth century. Ozark's folklorists have collected information about these women and their healing practices.

 

Until the New Deal programs and World War II changed the region's financial system and transportation, bad roads and the lack of money forced most country people to rely on native remedies prepared by the family's womenfolk.

 

Eventually, pregnant women began to enter hospitals to give birth, and Granny Women went by the wayside. The science of medicine scoffed at the nurturing and holistic care midwives provided for their family, friends, and neighbors.

 

The era of women's healing art in domestic medicine is now history. But if we look closely into our family history, we will find Granny Women.             

 

Among the McDonald County Historical Museum acquisitions, I found a midwife certificate. Issued on October 20, 1884, at the State Board of Health in Hannibal, Missouri, it certifies that Mrs. Delphia Hall Laughlin had practiced midwifery for ten years and was legally authorized to practice in the state. Laughlin received her certificate at Powell, Missouri, on January 1, 1885.

 

Today, midwifery is an internationally recognized profession. The American College of Nurse-Midwives includes the primary health care of women and their newborn children. A Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) is a woman who is educated in nursing and midwifery and who has certification according to the requirements of the American College of Nurse-Midwives. 

 

The nurse-midwifery practice manages women's health care, focusing on pregnancy, childbirth, the postpartum period, care of the newborn, and the family planning and gynecological needs of women. The Certified Nurse-Midwife practices within a health care system that provides consultation, collaborative management, or referral as shown by the client's health status.

 

Despite the evolution of medicine, Granny Women continued to practice the healing arts that had been handed down from mother to daughter. Instilled in the women, they did whatever was necessary to care for their family and friends, in sickness and health. 

 

The herb garden was grown right alongside the vegetable garden. In the fields and woods, native plants, trees, and flowers grew abundantly, offering healing properties for those who gathered and gleaned. 

 

In this modern world, some scoff at and become quite angry with the thought of people seeking holistic health and "folk," "home," or "natural" remedies. And, of course, after doctors spend countless years of study and pay for it all, they do not want to hear of someone seeking backwoods cures. 

 

But herbs are a big industry. Herbal stores and natural food stores run a brisk business. Women have always known how to care for themselves. I remember my grandmothers using herbs and plants to put a meal on the table and to heal what ailed us. I remember the herb garden near the smokehouse in the old home. I'm proud to have documentation of a Granny Woman in my family history, and I celebrate my 2^nd great-grandmother, Nancy Smith Johnson.

 

References for this article

Missouri History Museum: Genealogy and Local History Index

Missouri Medical College (http://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/missouri); an online workshop, "Herbal Lore and The Historic Medicinal Uses of Herbs"

The obituary of Nancy Johnson from the Wheaton Journal on DVD, courtesy of the MO Historical Society, of which I own a copy 

Disclaimer: In writing this article, I make no claims to persuade people to choose folk remedies over a medical doctor should a person have an illness. I write historical articles about exciting topics and especially enjoy researching women and history. With that in mind, I will give you information about midwifery in Southwest Missouri.