Stoney Creek Woman by Bridget Moran

Author:Bridget Moran [Moran, Bridget]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC021000, Native American Studies, Biography
ISBN: 9781551523361
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 1988-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LIKE MOST WOMEN, I DATE MANY of the happenings in my life from the times when my children were born. I will say, “We must have built our second house in 1943 because Bernice was just a year old when we moved into it,” or, “Our ball team won that year. I remember that I was pregnant with Florence.”

Over the years, between 1930, when I was seventeen, and 1949, when I was thirty-six, I had twelve children, six girls and six boys. Some were born in the village, some on the trapline or at our hunting grounds. Not one of my children was born in a hospital. My mother acted as a midwife for me; when I lost her, my aunts or other relatives were with me when I gave birth.

Some of the midwives practised the old ways of Native medicine. We call it the laying on of hands. We believe that some Native women have a gift of healing in their hands. When I was seventeen and having Winnie, my first child, there was an elderly midwife who put her hands across my back and stroked me. I can still remember how that stroking made the pain less. The labour pains did not stop, but they were greatly eased.

And oh, that cup of tea that was brought to me after each child was born tasted so good! All through the labour, a person could say to herself, “I’ll have a nice cup of hot tea when this is over.” There was something very comforting about the thought of that cup of tea.

One birth I remember well. Ernie, my fourth son, was born in Wedgewood in 1945. It was September, and the baby was due at any time. I thought that I would go into the hospital in Vanderhoof and deliver my baby in comfort for once. Wedge-wood was only four train stops from Vanderhoof. The train came through at midnight. I thought that when my labour pains started, I would just hop on the train and for the first time in my life, enjoy the luxury of hospital care. Things didn’t work out quite as I had planned.

We had two tents set up in Wedgewood with a campfire between the two. In one was Lazare, me, and our daughter Winnie who had stayed home from school to help me. In the other was Aunt Monica and her husband. He had just re-turned from the Second World War. My aunt and I had been working very hard, slicing up meat and scraping hides. The men had killed many moose that fall. It was heavy heavy work. Lazare intended to build a cabin so that we could spend the winter there.

Suddenly, one evening after working hard all day, my labour pains started. I dressed myself and packed a few things to take with me on the train. The pains became worse.

I said to my aunt, “I’ll never be able to get on the train,” and I took my clothes off.

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