Beyond the story
We've lost a great deal of knowledge about the healing practices of that era. There's still a passion for learning about medicinal plants and their uses, for certain, but I think about the every day practices of home remedies in a time when that was all that was available. So much was handed down through generations orally, and never got recorded.
Midwives; women tending women in their own homes. I like to think of that, though I know the number of miscarriages and tragic births were many. My grandmother and her mother were midwives as well as healers. They also had a friend named Aunt Julia, the child of former slaves, who was one, as well. I know little of her, but when I looked for early photos of African American midwives, I found.a photograph that seemed a perfect image of Aunt Julia. Reading about the life of Sibby Kelly, the woman in the picture, I learned that she was from the same area of Georgia where my story took place, in the same time!
Midwives; women tending women in their own homes. I like to think of that, though I know the number of miscarriages and tragic births were many. My grandmother and her mother were midwives as well as healers. They also had a friend named Aunt Julia, the child of former slaves, who was one, as well. I know little of her, but when I looked for early photos of African American midwives, I found.a photograph that seemed a perfect image of Aunt Julia. Reading about the life of Sibby Kelly, the woman in the picture, I learned that she was from the same area of Georgia where my story took place, in the same time!
