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.
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.
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.