Minnie White Watson

ROBBY LUCKETT: Today is December 17, 2016. We are at the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center in Jackson, Mississippi. This is Robby Luckett. Do I have your permission to record this interview?

MINNIE MWW: You do.

RL: Tell me your name.

MWW: I am Minnie White Watson.

RL: And can you spell that for us?

MWW: That’s M-I-N-N-I-E W-H-I-T-E W-A-T-S-O-N.

RL: Tell me a little bit about your life, where you’re from. Tell me about your parents and how you grew up.

MWW: Originally, I’m from Bolton, Mississippi. My mom moved from Bolton, I believe, when I was a freshman in college—no, I’m sorry, a senior in high school. She moved to Edwards, Mississippi. But 00:01:00I grew up mainly in Bolton, and from there I came to Jackson. Well, I graduated from Sumner Hill High School in Clinton, Mississippi, and from then I came to Jackson, Mississippi, attended Campbell, JP Campbell Bonner College. From there, I left Mississippi for a little while and then came back and enrolled in Jackson State University, where I graduated.

RL: What did your parents do?

MWW: Well, my mother was married twice. Her first husband was a farmer, she was a farmer, and my mom was a seamstress and a midwife. So also my mother’s first husband was killed in a farm accident, and then my mother married a second time and was married to my father. He was a farmer, as well, and then he went into the service, he went into World War II, and he did not return home.

RL: How many brothers 00:02:00and sisters do you have?

MWW: There were six of us in all. I have one brother living now and two sisters.

RL: After you graduated from Jackson State, what did you do?

MWW: I worked at Jackson State for about five years. Then I worked for a program called Opportunities Industrialization Center, and from there I worked with another company. And from that I went to Tougaloo College, where I’m presently employed.

RL: And what do you do at Tougaloo today?

MWW: I’m the archivist there, and I’m curator for the Medgar Evers Historic House.

RL: You mentioned that your mother was a midwife.

MWW: Right.

RL: What was her name?

MWW: Mary [sp?] White Watson.

RL: And how did she become a midwife?

MWW: I really don’t know, and I remember my mom—well, not remember—I know she became a midwife from I guess you call it following other midwives and going into training, I suppose, 00:03:00with other midwives, was teaching her, I suppose. But when I began to pay attention I knew my mom was a midwife.

RL: What do you think led her to do that?

MWW: I don’t know. My mom was always a person who would help others, and she started talking, she talked to us sometimes about things that she would do for others. As I said, she was a seamstress. My mom would sew for people who couldn’t afford to pay her, do alterations and that kind of thing. And she just always seemed to be a caring person.

RL: And who were some of the other midwives that you remember? Who trained her?

MWW: I believe she was trained by a lady named Sadie Singleton [sp?], I believe, but there were several midwives around: Mrs. Annie Louise Fortner, [sp?] who lived in the area. We lived, I lived on a farm—some say plantation; it really wasn’t a plantation—but Mrs. Annie Fortner who taught school as well, who 00:04:00really didn’t have time to deliver babies. And then there was another lady, Mrs. Indiana McGraw [sp?]. Mrs. Sadie Singleton. These are just some of the people that I knew that were midwives.

RL: And when your mother would be called, I guess, how did people get in touch with her, and what was the process for her to go deliver a baby?

MWW: Well, before we had a phone, we were in the country, people would come, and riding horses, riding mules and wagons. And I can remember when my mom, when I started really paying attention and got old enough to pay attention to what she was doing, my mom had—we had a horse called Red [sp?], and my mom would tell my brother if someone—because it seemed like babies are always born at night, and always in stormy weather. And my mom would wake up my brother and tell him to go and saddle Red, or let’s say if someone came riding a horse or a mule, and she would ride the horse. My 00:05:00mom rode sidesaddle, as we call it, and she had her bag. She would hook it on the side of the saddle, and away she would go. Sometimes people would come in wagons, as I said or later on in cars. People would even, after they’d moved from out there, came to Jackson, and she would even come to Jackson and deliver babies.

RL: Wow. About when would this be? What—?

MWW: My mom— I have it over here in my purse. Can I stop?

RL: Sure.

MWW: Because I wrote it down, the exact year. Yeah. She became a midwife shortly after 1948, and she retired on February 19, 1976.

RL: So almost 30 years. When people came to the house, was there a room in the house that they would go into, or—?

MWW: No, 00:06:00she never delivered a baby at our house. She always would go to their houses, and sometimes my mom would—two—would be a couple of days she would spend with people, and after we got a car, and my brother was old enough to drive and stuff, sometime we would even—and we would go and take her food and that kind of thing.

RL: So when people came to the house, they came to pick her up and take her.

MWW: They came to pick her up and take her wherever the person was that was having a baby.

RL: And you mentioned she had a bag that she carried with her. What all was in the bag?

MWW: All of the little essentials that were needed. Her little booklet that tells you how to—well, what to do if you ran into problems, those kinds of things. And I would just say that the family donated all of that to archives and history.

RL: Wow. And that booklet, was that a booklet that she wrote herself? That someone gave to her? Was— MWW: No, someone gave her that.

RL: Wow. 00:07:00So another midwife that— MWW: Well, midwives then also had to come to Jackson to the clinic, for meetings and that kind of thing, and so I assume that’s where. When she took her— You had to be licensed so I’m assuming that after she became licensed that they provided her with all of that, with the little kit that you would have to have, and the little booklets that you would record the babies’ names in, and the information on the parents and that kind of thing.

RL: And so she would have been licensed by the state of Mississippi?

MWW: The state of Mississippi.

RL: In 1948?

MWW: [Nods affirmatively.] RL: Do you know anything about that process and what she had to go through?

MWW: I don’t. I really don’t. I really don’t. I guess we should have done some research on that. I just have a newspaper clipping of when she retired.

RL: Sure. Do you remember any stories that she may have told about any of her experiences?

MWW: Well, some things she would 00:08:00come home and talk about, the different experiences. And the midwives out there, as I said, in Bolton, they had a relationship with doctors that if they ran into a problem with maybe a hard delivery or whatever, that they could call on the doctors, and the doctor would come out. And I remember one doctor in particular, Dr. Reynolds [sp?], from Clinton, Mississippi. That’s who my mom would always call on.

RL: Was Dr. Reynolds a white man?

MWW: He was.

RL: So he would come out in the middle of the night, too?

MWW: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Or you got the patient to the—he would tell you to get the patient—he had a clinic—get the patient to the clinic or to the hospital, that kind of thing. But I don’t remember my mom— She would tell us that if someone was having problem with labor they went to the hospital, or that kind of thing. But there were no Black doctors out 00:09:00there in that country.

RL: Right. And how was she paid for doing this?

MWW: [Laughs.] That’s what we laugh about. When I remember, my mom was getting I think it was like—well, as I said, when I remember; I don’t know what she was getting at first, but when I recall she was getting $15 per delivery. Most, a lot of times, she was not paid. They would tell her, “Mary, I’m going to pay you, I’m going to do this.” And my mom would say, “Okay.” And sometimes my mom would come home with potatoes. People would give potatoes, or, say, a chicken, and we would say, “Oh, we have a lot of that, we have plenty of that,” that kind of thing. As kids, that’s what we would say. But my mom was very, very good at—I’ll say she was good at what she did, but my mom was a very kind person. I remember at 00:10:00her funeral there were some people that came up to us and just started telling us about what all our mom had done for them. I said my mom was a seamstress, and sometimes my mom would come home and she would say, “Well, this person didn’t have that,” or that kind of thing, and she would take it from her house. And they had to do all of the like when you go to the hospital when they’re having the baby, all of the padding and that kind of thing. My mom would take newspapers, and that’s what they made their pads, and by her being a seamstress she would cover those with fabric and that’s what the patient lay on to have a baby.

RL: Wow. Anything else you remember about things she would take with her, or did she have a uniform that she’d wear?

MWW: Oh, yeah, they had the uniform. It was white uniform, and with the cap, the band that went around and the little thing that came over. It reminded you of military nurses, really. But yeah, they 00:11:00had a uniform, white shoes, and white uniform. yeah.

RL: So you knew who the midwife was.

MWW: You knew who the midwife was. That’s what they would wear when they’d go to deliver the baby. But as I said, you didn’t have very many, those three—well, four—midwives that I knew out in that area. But, as I was saying, at my mom’s funeral people was telling us what all she had done for them, and, “I still owe Ms. Mary,” you know. And I remember she delivered one man’s last child, and he told her, “Mary, I’m gon name this child after you, after your daughter.” My mom said, “What daughter?” He said, “Minnie Ruth.” That’s my name. And my mom said, “I guess that was my pay, ’cause I never got paid for—” [Laughs.] But yeah, and my mom had delivered over—well, we counted over 500-and-some babies.

RL: Wow.

MWW: And I remember 00:12:00when my mom got sick, she had leukemia, and she was in the hospital, and this doctor in Clinton who—his son had taken over for Dr. Reynolds. But anyway, he was her doctor in the hospital, and he told us, he said, “You all need to sit down with your mom and record stuff while she’s here in the hospital.” Because she would go in and get treatment and go home, that kind of thing. But he knew about her, and then just him talking to us about it. And we never did sit down and do that with her like he suggested. But he talked with her a lot, and about the babies she had delivered, and about problems she ran into with the different patients, and that kind of thing.

RL: When did she die?

MWW: My mom died in—oh, God, when did my mom die? In ’80? No, ’90-something. I can’t remember exactly when she died. I know I was working at Jackson State when she 00:13:00 died.

RL: How old was she?

MWW: My mom was 81.

RL: And with you and your siblings, were you delivered by midwives?

MWW: Yes. We all were.

RL: Who were they?

MWW: A lady named Mrs. Janet Carr [sp?] delivered me, and I think she probably delivered most of my mom’s kids except for the baby. She was delivered by a lady named Mrs. Indiana McGraw, ’cause she was a midwife, as well.

RL: And I assume they all knew each other quite well.

MWW: Oh, they did, ’cause they would have to attend the meetings. They would come to Jackson there at the clinic on Woodrow Wilson. This is where they would come to their monthly meetings, or quarterly meetings, however they— RL: And so she would send out for them and they would come to your house and deliver the babies there. Is that right?

MWW: She would send for who? Me?

RL: The other midwives.

MWW: No, she’d send 00:14:00for one. As I said— RL: No, yeah, right.

MWW: Oh, yeah, just one would come and deliver the baby.

RL: Right. What do you remember about them?

MWW: The other midwives? Mrs. Fortner was a teacher there, a schoolteacher, and she and her husband also ran, as we called it, the country store, as well as a club, the country store on one side, the little club on the other side. And Mrs. Indiana McGraw— We all belonged to the same church, we lived kind of like in the same community, except for Mrs. Sadie Singleton; she was in another community, the Orange Hill community.

RL: And your father was a World War II veteran.

MWW: Right.

RL: Who never came home.

MWW: Never came home.

RL: What happened to him? Do you know?

MWW: He was wounded and he died in the hospital.

RL: Do you know where he was wounded?

MWW: He was in the Pacifics. 00:15:00RL: So that would have been before your mother started midwifing.

MWW: Yes.

RL: Did she start midwifing? I’m imagining this incredible woman who had to raise this family on her own.

MWW: Right. As I said, she farmed. We farmed, and, as I tell everybody, some people say, “You sharecrop.” No, we farmed. We rented everything that we needed. And then she was a seamstress, so that helped a lot. And then she got a little stipend, if that’s what you call it, from my father, from our father.

RL: From the pension.

MWW: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

RL: And so midwifing was another way for her to contribute to the family.

MWW: Right, exactly, exactly.

RL: And to the community, because— MWW: And to the community, as well. And then, as I said, she sewed for people from all around. People would come from— And we amazed that my mom— We stopped my mom, really, after most 00:16:00of us got grown. We said, “Look, you’re sewing for people, and you’re not charging enough.” And then my mom sewed without patterns. People would bring her copies out of catalogs and say, “Mary, I want this made.” And all she could see was the front, but she could do it. And so finally we got on her about that, and she’d make them [inaudible].

RL: Where did she learn to do that?

MWW: My mom came from a family—I believe it was 13 of them—and she said she just always hung around her mother. Now, her mother quilted. She didn’t sew for people, but they quilted and that kind of stuff, and my mom just kind of picked it up on her own.

RL: What other stories that you know, or what haven’t you told us about your experiences with your mom and other midwives?

MWW: Well, as far as other midwives, as I said, I 00:17:00wasn’t around them too much unless they came to my mom’s house for my mom to sew for them and that kind of thing, but everybody think I’m privileged [ph] and everybody think that Mom was an incredible woman, person. But we marvel at some of the things she did, and we wonder how did she do all of these things, raising kids and being a seamstress, being a midwife, and going here, and doing this and that for other people. But we think she was just a wonderful person, and as I said, so many people, when she passed, came to us and was telling us about stuff that my mom had done for them, and we had no idea. “I remember when your mom delivered my twins, and she did this, and she went and bought this for them, and I didn’t have curtains in my home, and your mother went and took her curtains and brought to our house,” that kind of stuff.

RL: Sounds like an amazing woman.

MWW: She was. She was. I’m sure everybody think that. Most people think their mom or their parents 00:18:00were amazing, but she was an amazing woman. She really was.

RL: Thank you so much. This was great.

MWW: You’re welcome. You’re welcome. [END OF INTERVIEW]