Carrie McDonnell Stewart (1878–1986)
Midwife Franklin, NC “Some mothers were so contrary you couldn’t hardly help them. I went and sit down one time. I said, ‘Just go ahead. I shall not touch you until you get to where you can abide by what I tell you’.” Carrie Stewart, a centenarian, was a sprightly and mischievous memorist, whose stories of marriage and family are a veritable history of all the ways women learned by doing. With ten children of her own—all born at home—she knew a lot about babies, and she went to school to earn her midwife’s permit from the state Board of Health and delivered babies in homes (often with the encouragement of a local doctor) until she was seventy-two years old. < > |