Bessie Gardner & John Mattews, Jr.

M1: All right, you can begin.

JKNV: Hello. I’m Dr. Janice K. Neal-Vincent, oral historian for Scott Ford House, Inc. and W.K. Kellogg team. Dr. Alferdteen Harrison, however, is the Executive Director of this Mississippi Granny Midwife Project. It’s Friday, July 30, 2021. I’m accommodated in this video recording by Mr. O’Shawn Brewer [sp?]. I have a series of questions pertaining to a Mississippi granny midwife in the Delta region. I would like for our interviewees at this time 00:01:00to state their names.

BESSIE LEE MATTHEWS GARDNER: My name is Bessie Lee Matthews Gardner.

JOHN MATTHEWS, JR.: And I am John Matthews, Jr.

JKNV: Thank you very much for being here with us. May I have your permission to interview you?

JMJ: Yes.

BLMG: Yes.

JKNV: Thank you. So we shall begin. I have a number of questions. First of all, what was the time period when you knew of a granny midwife who worked with you and/or your relatives? Specifically with whom did she work?

BLMG: My granny midwife was Bertha Henderson Matthews. She was born in 1901. I was 00:02:00introduced to my big mama, as we called her, when I was born in 1950, on her birthday. So that was when I officially came into the world, and with her bein’ my grandmother, I guess about two, three, four on, when we really start workin’ with her, visitin’ her, running in and out of her house, that’s when we really became friends with our grandmother.

JKNV: Okay. In what community and/or county did Mrs. Matthews and you live at the time?

BLMG: Well, when I was born, she had moved to Indianola, but she was well known from workin’ on Brumfield Plantation, and before that time she had worked in Tunica, Mississippi, and had gotten some of her legwork 00:03:00in with a doctor in Memphis, Tennessee, which gave her a craft that no one else around here had, because she had experience that no one else had, workin’ with the best in Tennessee. And we don’t know the person’s name, but we do know that she worked there. And when we met her, she was living in Indianola, here, on Cox Street, 605 Cox Street. And later she moved across the street within another house to 604 Cox Street.

JKNV: Six-oh-four.

BLMG: Six-oh-four.

JKNV: Okay. So this street has a long history of your Mississippi granny midwife.

BLMG: It really does.

JKNV: Okay. What was the community and/or county like? Were there, for instance, racial relations? And, if so, what were they 00:04:00 like?

JMJ: What was the community like? Segregated. The Blacks lived on one side of town; the whites lived on the other side. We all lived on the Black side of town, across the track as some people used to say.

JKNV: Okay. Tell me about that.

JMJ: Well, the schools were segregated. Practically everything was segregated. Even at the courthouse, they had a Black water fountain—it was labeled “colored”—and a white water fountain.

JKNV: Do you recall any experiences regarding the use of the fountains?

JMJ: Not that I’m particularly aware of. I heard rumors, but I’m not one to believe in a whole lot of rumors.

JKNV: Okay. What about, maybe, 00:05:00some experiences regarding Black/white relations?

JMJ: There were a lot of experiences regarding Black/white relations. In fact, there were some fights at that time. There were arguments. In fact, I was even called nigger myself.

JKNV: And how did you feel regarding that word addressed to you?

JMJ: I am what I think I am, and my parents and my grandparents had always taught us this: you are not what people call you; you are what you think of yourself.

JKNV: So your self-esteem must’ve been high.

JMJ: Very.

BLMG: And not 00:06:00only that, when we would go to the movies—well, now it’s Abraham’s Store downtown now. It used to be upstairs/downstairs. All the Negroes had to go upstairs to see the movie, and if anybody dropped popcorn or threw popcorn down there on the white, one of the managers would come upstairs and give you a lashin’. “Who threw that popcorn down there? If you throw it down there again, we’re gonna put you outta here! You don’t throw popcorn down there!” I mean, it was— JKNV: This was the white manager.

BLMG: Yes.

JKNV: Who talked any kind of way?

BLMG: Yes.

JKNV: Did any incidents occur after that particular incident of the insulting? Did the children or the adults do anything?

BLMG: You know, we were—it was so embedded in us, what my brother just said, you are who you think you are, don’t let them intimidate you, and, believe it or not, Cox Street, Coates Street—it was the square of Jefferson 00:07:00Street to Roosevelt Street, and all the streets in between—all of those is where the teachers that educate us, the people with good jobs, supervisors at the plant, stayed, and we all had good role models in the community where we were, because even the superintendent stayed on our street, the bus drivers was on our street, the teachers were on our street, everything you could name that was makin’ money back in the day, and the whole community helped to groom us to become educators or to get a job where you wouldn’t have to be on the welfare state. It was a community affair back in the day.

JKNV: Okay.

BLMG: And it wasn’t like you can’t say anything to my child, you can’t discipline my child, you can’t whoop my child. Everybody worked together so everyone could succeed back in the day. And we helped one another a whole lot, and that’s not goin’ on now. The Black 00:08:00community was really, really, really close knit. We played. We rolled tires. We threw objects up in the tree to retrieve the pecans from the tree. We did a lot, and we had fun doin’ it. We played hopscotch. We would shoot marbles. You don’t see any of that goin’ on today.

JKNV: Okay, okay. What was the granny midwife’s name who caught babies in your family or community? I think you said Bertha Henderson Matthews.

BLMG: Yes.

JKNV: Okay. Was she a member—? Yes, she was a member of your family. How old was she during that time?

BLMG: Well, when I was born, Big Mama was born in 1901 and I was born in 1950, so I guess she was about 49 when I was born, and she died when she was 85.

JMJ: Eighty-five. 00:09:00JKNV: Okay. What year was that when she died?

BLMG: 1985. Or was it ’86? Eighty-five.

JKNV: She died when she was 85.

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative], so that was ’86, right?

JKNV: When she was 85.

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

JKNV: And what year was that?

JMJ: 1985. [Laughter.] JKNV: Okay, okay.

JMJ: She must’ve been 84.

BLMG: Well, there was a controversy as to whether she was born in 1900 or 1901, and, you know, back in the day they would say, “Well, she was born this time, but they put this on her birth certificate,” so really, she would tell us 1900, but I think her certificate or whatever it was said 1901. And they got a lot of Black people dates mixed up. They got my mom’s birthday mixed up. One of my sister-in-law celebrated her birthday; her birthday is mixed up. So they didn’t give a hoot about us back in the day. It was just whatever will, 00:10:00they would put it on there when they decided to process the application or whatever.

JKNV: Yes, I seemingly recall reading about the mixups and the— BLMG: Uh-huh [affirmative], mixups, uh-huh [affirmative].

JKNV: —the estimations that many of the Black families had to do in terms of the birth rate, yeah.

BLMG: But she knew how old she was. She would always say how old she was, and when she died she was 85 years old, so that meant she was born in 1900.

JKNV: Okay. Okay.

BLMG: But they had to honor whatever was on the little certificate they had.

JKNV: Did she catch babies beyond family members?

JMJ: Yes, throughout the entire county, really, because I remember ridin’ up to Drew once with her and Papa, where she went to deliver a baby. So throughout Sunflower County.

JKNV: Okay. 00:11:00Approximately how many babies did she catch overall?

JMJ: Hundreds.

BLMG: Hundreds. [Laughs.] JKNV: Hundreds of babies.

BLMG: Hundreds.

JKNV: Hundreds of babies. So she was well thought of, hundreds of babies.

BLMG: She was.

JKNV: Did she catch Black and white babies?

JMJ: Just Black.

JKNV: Just Black, okay. Why did she catch babies outside of medical clinics and hospitals?

JMJ: Because for people who didn’t have insurance, the doctors would refer them to her.

JKNV: So 00:12:00these people would go to the doctors, or contact the doctors initially, and then they referred.

JMJ: And for the delivery, the doctors would refer them to midwives.

JKNV: Okay. Was she refused opportunities to catch babies in medical clinics and/or hospitals?

JMJ: I would think so.

JKNV: Why would you think so?

BLMG: Because they always sent the patient to her. The doctors, Dr.—I think I gave you their names before—Dr. Joe Hull, Dr. Arnold Hull, H-U-L-L, Joe Hull, Arnold Hull, Robert Mill Hurt, and Dr. Walter Rhodes [sp?], those were the four doctors in Hull Brother Clinic at that time, 00:13:00and anytime they had a more dismal patient that couldn’t afford to pay, or had problems that they could not deal with, they would send it to Big Mama, as we would call her.

JKNV: Okay. Did racism interfere with the midwife catchin’ babies? And, if so, explain.

BLMG: It didn’t interfere, because this was a all-white clinic. They just sent everybody that they couldn’t afford to go to the hospital, they were sent to her, and she had built a little room on the back of her house with two beds in it, and they had access to a bathroom. I guess she was the bomb back in the day ’cause she had a bathroom in the house, when everybody else had one outhouse. So they would send them to her, and she would deliver 00:14:00the babies at the house, and if there were any kind of problems when I became, you know, a teenager and was in high school, we would help out any way we could, like boiling the water, cookin’ for her, cleanin’ the house, or—I started writing the birth certificates when I was in high school for her, and getting them out to the Health Department.

JKNV: Do you have copies of those— BLMG: Ooh, no, that was— JKNV: —or a ledger?

BLMG: No, we couldn’t keep record of that. Everything had to be turned in to the Health Department. The HIPAA law—they might not’ve said HIPAA back in the day, but everything was private, still is. Can’t keep that kind of information. Now, if she did, I don’t know, because when I would write ’em out I would give ’em to her, and sometimes she would say, “Run these out there” but most of the time she’d take them out there herself. So I don’t know what transpired.

JKNV: That was for the Health Department.

BLMG: Uh-huh [affirmative]. So she had to turn all of hers in to the Health Department. 00:15:00JKNV: Now, once she turned them in, do you recall them giving her a copy or anything like that? She just submitted and that was it?

BLMG: She submitted, because once they came back they went probably to the patient.

JKNV: Okay, mm-hmm [affirmative]. Did she talk about medical doctors or nurses who discriminated against her?

BLMG: No.

JMJ: No.

JKNV: Okay. Did medical doctors prevent mothers from having children at hospitals?

JMJ: If they didn’t have insurance, yes. [Laughter.] JKNV: Okay, okay. So insurance was very important.

BLMG: Either that, or your straw boss agreed to pay, your bossman. If bossman didn’t agree to pay, you went to Bertha.

JKNV: Okay. 00:16:00So it sounds like she had a good relationship, then, with these four doctors you talked about.

BLMG: She did.

JKNV: Okay. Did she have a certificate to practice midwifery?

BLMG: I never saw one. Did you?

JMJ: No, but I think she did, though.

BLMG: She might’ve kept it in her medical bag, yeah.

JKNV: But you never saw it.

JMJ: But I never saw it, no.

BLMG: She might’ve kept it in her medical bag, ’cause we didn’t have privy to her medical bag. ’Cause when she went out to deliver, she would always take that bag with her.

JKNV: Okay. What did her medical bag look like?

BLMG: Black leather 00:17:00medical bag. She had the best of the best medical bag, just like the doctors did. It was a black medical bag.

JKNV: What shape was it in over the years?

BLMG: Probably rundown. [Laughs.] JKNV: Okay, you don’t recall that?

BLMG: No.

JKNV: But you know she had the black bag.

BLMG: She had the black bag, and it was present when she died, but her son got it. We don’t know what happened to it after that.

JKNV: Okay. Was she certified by the County?

JMJ: I don’t know who certified midwives, but she was recognized.

JKNV: Okay, okay. How was she compensated for catching the babies?

BLMG: Oh, it was each person paid her.

JKNV: Okay, each person 00:18:00paid her.

BLMG: Each person, that was your bill. Now— JKNV: Okay. How did they pay her?

BLMG: Cash.

JMJ: Mostly cash.

BLMG: Mostly cash, but she had a lot of chickens out there. [Laughs.] JKNV: Tell me about it. How did they pay her? You said mostly cash, but— BLMG: She had a lot of chickens out back. She had—her backyard was full of chickens, so we assume people gave her chickens or whatever. I think back in the day, people that didn’t really have money, they used the bartering concept: “I can’t pay you, but I’m gonna give you this.” JMJ: And some of them never paid. Some people owed her money when she died.

BLMG: But she never complained about it.

JKNV: Okay. [pause] Was 00:19:00she forced into retirement?

BLMG: No.

JMJ: Yes.

BLMG: She had a stroke. [Laughs.] JMJ: By the stroke.

JKNV: Okay, okay. So her health, okay.

BLMG: Yeah, uh-huh [affirmative].

JKNV: Okay. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BLMG: Well, I guess when you really look at it, the stroke did force her, didn’t it?

JKNV: Yeah, that’s somethin’ to think about, mm-hmm [affirmative]. What were family relations like? You said you grew up under her, so what were those family relations like? What are some of the things you recall? Did she pat you on the knee? Did she clap hands 00:20:00with you? Did she play marbles with you?

JMJ: No, none of that.

JKNV: What was that like? [Laughter.] JMJ: She was like Big Mama.

JKNV: Which means? [Laughter.] JMJ: She liked kids, and she was compassionate with kids, but she didn’t suffer adults.

BLMG: I need to run out just a minute.

JKNV: Okay. She was compassionate with the kids, but she didn’t suffer adults.

JMJ: No, she expected— JKNV: Why not?

JMJ: She expected adults to make adult decisions.

JKNV: Okay. Okay. Did they?

JMJ: Some. And those who didn’t suffered the consequences.

JKNV: Okay. Which were?

JMJ: Usually a good tongue-lashing. And there were some who suffered more severe punishment. 00:21:00JKNV: Which was?

BLMG: Spanking.

JMJ: Well, she was chopping in her garden once, and she was afraid of frogs, and this guy kept messin’ with her. He was holdin’ a frog. So she hit him in the head with the hoe. [Laughter.] BLMG: She had no problem with snakes but she was afraid of a frog. Kill a snake in a minute.

JKNV: My goodness. Okay. [pause] JMJ: In fact, 00:22:00all of my friends called her Big Mama, too.

JKNV: Okay, okay. Well, maybe that would go with this question: what do you recall about the contributions that she made within the family and/or community? So within the community, there were lots of folks who called her Big Mama.

JMJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative], and at that time, in practically every family, she had delivered at least one baby.

JKNV: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Did she spend time with folk in the community?

BLMG: Yes, ma’am. She had this swing on her porch. She had a screened-in front porch. Everybody liked to go through the gate, go to those fruit trees, and come sit on the porch, and even talk to Big Mama. 00:23:00And then sometimes when we were over there, our friends would come, ’cause, as I told you, those four streets were connected, and everybody just sit on the porch and swing and talk and play and eat.

JKNV: Okay. So they were right at home.

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

JKNV: The neighborhood children.

JMJ: They felt comfortable with her.

JKNV: How were the parents, or the other adults, regarding these children and the comfort they had with your grandmother?

BLMG: No problem.

JMJ: They had no problem with it.

BLMG: ’Cause she delivered most of the kids that was in the porch with her. [Laughs.] JKNV: Okay, okay. Okay.

BLMG: No problem. She was a neighborhood grandma. 00:24:00Just like the story, Big Mama, everybody called her Big Mama? Uh-huh [affirmative], she was the neighborhood Big Mama.

JKNV: Okay. How long could the children stay with her?

BLMG: Well, you know, back in the day our curfew was when the light come on you had to be at home, so when that light came on everybody had to skedaddle. [Laughs.] JMJ: No, they had to skedaddle before the light came on. [Laughter.] When the streetlight came on, you needed to be on your front porch.

BLMG: That was the rule.

JKNV: Okay. How many babies did she catch in the family? And do you recall any of the names? Did she catch the two of you?

JMJ: You’re lookin’ at two.

JKNV: Okay. 00:25:00And who were the others?

BLMG: Stacy [sp?], Emmett [sp?], Jackie [sp?]— JKNV: Pardon? Stacy?

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

JKNV: Jackie?

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. She caught Emmett, too, didn’t she?

JKNV: John, Bessie?

BLMG: Uh-huh [affirmative].

JMJ: Albert, Bernice [sp?].

JKNV: Albert, Bernice.

BLMG: Lewis.

JMJ: Lewis.

JKNV: Lewis? How does Lewis spell his name?

BLMG: L-E-W-I-S.

JMJ: L-E-W-I-S.

JKNV: Okay. Were there others?

BLMG: What about Ora Lee [sp?], birth Mary [sp?], and Noel [sp?]? I don’t know about them.

JKNV: Okay, but these you know about.

BLMG: Uh-huh [affirmative].

JKNV: Okay. Did she have any assistance during the birthing process? And, if so, who were they, and how did they assist?

JMJ: Usually she worked alone, but, now, when we were over there, we would assist her by boiling water, getting towels, and stuff like that.

JKNV: “We”? 00:26:00You and Bessie?

BLMG: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

JKNV: Okay.

JMJ: Running errands to get anything that she needed.

JKNV: Okay.

BLMG: We would have to buy grocery, pay bills, and whatever she needed us to do. Cook, clean up.

JMJ: I didn’t do that.

BLMG: I did. Wash. [Laughs.] JMJ: I didn’t do the cookin’.

BLMG: I did most of the cookin’ for her.

JKNV: Okay. And you said she caught babies in the entire community, so was she assisted in that endeavor? Were all of the babies delivered in her home, in the little room you talked about— BLMG: Both.

JKNV: —or did she go out?

BLMG: Out.

JMJ: Both.

BLMG: Both.

JKNV: Okay, okay. Well, 00:27:00since the two of you were assisting her during the birthing process, did the other children know what she was doing? Or were they allowed in the room?

BLMG: Oh, no.

JMJ: Oh, none of us were allowed in the room.

BLMG: No! [Laughs.] JKNV: Okay. So how were you assisting her and you weren’t allowed in the room?

BLMG: Okay, if she said, “I need some towels”— JMJ: She’d come to the door and tell us what she needed, and we would just provide what she needed, go get it.

BLMG: Stick it in the crack.

JKNV: Okay. You weren’t allowed in the room, to see anything.

BLMG: No.

JMJ: No, never, not in the room.

BLMG: No, the Privacy Act.

JMJ: Which didn’t exist at that time.

BLMG: But she adhered to it. She was before her time.

JKNV: Do 00:28:00you have a story about a Black doctor in the community during the time period of the midwife? And, I guess, connected to this story that I’m wanting to hear is did Mrs. Matthews deliver babies in connection to the Black doctor, or—? [Break in video] JKNV: That would be another contribution to Mrs. Matthews’s legacy. And so can we get that tub [ph] today? [Laughter.] Well, you know we have the deed sheet, the gift of deed sheet, and have you done anything to complete the other artifacts on it, to list those? Okay.

BLMG: No, the ones I gave you, no, I haven’t put them on there yet.

JKNV: Okay. So you— JMJ: You didn’t put my birth certificate on there?

BLMG: Unh-uh [negative].

JKNV: [Laughs.] We would like for you to 00:29:00do the deed sheet, and— BLMG: Here it is.

JKNV: —get it to me, get it to me, along with any other items like the tub you’re talking about, so that we can bring some closure to your family and the region. You do know that the essay contest deadline, rather, has been extended to the 15th— BLMG: Right.

JKNV: —of August. And so we are hoping that you are working with the children, and sharing the story. This is just really very interesting. And I can see the children bubbling about it, because I’m bubbling. As you’ve been talking, I’ve been imagining myself sitting on the porch, swinging in the swing with the grandmother, maybe not saying anything to her verbally as a child, being very shy, 00:30:00but taking it all in. And then she’s going to go into the house and maybe fix some peach cobbler or bake a cake or a poundcake— JMJ: You wouldn’t want to eat her cookin’ now. [Laughter.] JKNV: Or whatever she does good. Go to the garden and give me a peach or a plum.

BLMG: I had to do the cookin’ when I got old.

JMJ: She was not a good cook.

BLMG: Not a cook. [Laughs.] JKNV: Okay, okay, because she was using her hands and her minds for other things: to discipline you, to bring the babies out, to communicate with the doctors, to communicate with the mothers on the bench in the church, to communicate with the—so she had her mind and her heart filled with goodness and sharing, though she was firm and a disciplinarian. So some of the other things you could’ve easily done—cooked the food, and passed her the towels, and drive her to the sites, and bring her back home— JMJ: Now, my grandfather could cook.

JKNV: Well, that’s where it went. You see, the companion did, 00:31:00and so did the granddaughter. All of that worked out. Well, I thank you so much for the opportunity to come once again and talk with you, because we have learned some other things about her, and about you, things that we did not know initially, but you have truly impacted Mrs. Matthews’s life for Scott Ford House, Inc., and those yet to come and find out over the years what she was all about. And what we want to do is take a photo of the two of you for the record. We know we already have one, and so we’ll just choose that one, that type of thing, because we have Dr. Kenyatta Stewart, who is working with us with the exhibit 00:32:00from all of the interviews that we’re doing over the four regions, and from that pool of photos and other artifacts, he will be dealing with that. And the culmination of things will take place December the 17th for a reception, and then the 18th, continuing the celebration with the children coming to receive their awards for the essay contest, and hold up their essays, and you’ll be hearing from me again as the time draws nigh for the great celebration. [Laughs.] JMJ: Now, where’s the museum going to be? I believe you said it the last time you were here, but I don’t remember.

JKNV: What was it now?

JMJ: Where is the museum going to be located?

JKNV: Yes, the museum is going to be located at Cohea Street. 00:33:00There are two houses that were owned way back when by Virginia Scott Ford, who was the granny midwife in that particular community, the midtown Jackson community, and Ford, the daughter, was also, she and her husband, owners of the other family. These two houses are in the Farish Street Historic District, historic because there were prominent businessmen and women, there were prominent doctors, lawyers, etc., there in the downtown area, known as Farish Street. And over the years, 00:34:00many years, properties there started being restored. A contractor had come along and had started working with the restoration project, which is now up again by some other folks as they continue to deal with the prominence [ph], to bring it back, that this Black community had. And that’s why the museum is so crucial to travelers who will be coming from abroad, and so forth. Virginia Scott Ford was a great woman in her time. As a matter of fact, her granddaughter, Mrs. Lula Ford—well, she was Ms. Lula Ford, because she never married—I remember as a child, because Ms. Ford was my Big Mama’s 00:35:00insurance lady, and I can see her coming in the door, smiling and laughing and talking with Big Mama. She came quite often. So she was carrying on that legacy that she had been taught about being productive, never married, but she did have a son, and I don’t know even if the son is still living now. But she never married, herself. She was very independent, and very well-respected, like Virginia Scott, like Mrs. Bertha Henderson. Mrs. Bertha Henderson Matthews. Very respected. So just knowing this information firsthand means a lot, and I know it means a lot to you, because of the research that you have done here, in light of your 00:36:00remembrance of everything. And so when all of the granny midwives are revealed from Mississippi, through the pictures and artifacts and other things, that’s going to be a great time. So I look at this as a significant honor. I am the fourth and last child out of 10 children within my family, from my mama and daddy, who came from a midwife, a granny midwife. And so I don’t have the information that you have, in terms of remembering her. I do have a birth certificate, and her name is on it, so that is something that I cherish, knowing about all of this now about the Mississippi granny midwives, and the contributions that they have made. 00:37:00So we would like to get a picture at this time, if you don’t mind.

JMJ: Okay.

JKNV: Okay. [END OF INTERVIEW]