An unlikely pairing on Hatteras Island in 1923 of an illiterate, self-taught midwife, Bathsheba Foster (\"Mis' Bashi\") and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine graduate Blanche Nettleton Epler provides a picture of maternity care and the dangers women faced in childbirth a hundred years ago.
Among Mrs. Cynthia Rollinson’s recollections of life were the lives she helped delivered as a midwife. As for life from decades ago, she could attest to a time when homes had ice boxes instead of refrigerators. She could also attest to a way Hatteras Island seemed futuristic, even in its dependency on kerosene as a light source: it had windmills.
The school system as she knew it back then: one room buildings, students of all ages taught together, and a salary of thirty five dollars a month. It may be surprising, then, for her to conclude those conditions better. A common explanation may be a salary almost a tenth of a contemporary salary stretching further. A less common conclusion may echo Leona Meekins’: God’s providence provided a fortunate and richly lived life.
Born in 1883, Mrs. Jenette Stowe has cared for people all her life. Now at the age of 93, Stowe has delivered over 300 babies as a midwife on the Outer Banks, from Ocracoke to Chicamacomico.