The month of May has been designated both Heritage and Nurses’ Month. Usually I write on individual nurses but this year I have decided to begin the month with an article relating to the birth and delivery of children in Bermuda between the 1940s and 1970s.

In 1927, the Government of Bermuda passed a law requiring all practising midwives submit to an examination in order to become registered. This presented a life-changing blow to midwives who had gained skills from their mothers and generations of women before them. There were no books to study or accredited classes and many had never taken an examination. Despite the disruption, this law was an important and necessary move. It is unknown how many midwives passed the first examination, but it is known that 67-year-old Cordelia Fubler was the oldest successful candidate.

After this change, most home deliveries were taken over by midwives brought to Bermuda from Britain by the Bermuda Welfare Society, formed in 1925 by women described as the “social elite”.

Each nurse was provided with a house and was based in a parish. The prerequisite for their employment was that they be midwives as well as Queen’s District Nurses. This latter qualification eliminated all Bermudian nurses except one — a White Bermudian midwife who was not a Queen’s Nurse. In fact, she was not a Registered Nurse either.

Dr E.F. Gordon, who was living in Somerset when the situation in the parish arose, protested on behalf of the more qualified nurses. Sadly he did not live to see any changes in the employment of local nurses. It took 38 years before the first Black Bermudian, Leonie Harford, was employed by this organisation.

When I returned to Bermuda in 1967, I became the third Bermudian employed as a district nurse/midwife and delivered babies in Devonshire and Smith’s Parish from 1967 to 1970. Although family doctors at that time performed deliveries, Bermudian obstetricians began returning to open their practices and mothers began to choose this new option. This resulted in the steady decline of family doctor deliveries and midwife home deliveries.

Over the years I have interviewed, cared for and delivered many babies, but for this writing I will describe some of the stories communicated to me over the years.

One senior I interviewed in 2008 when she was 94, recalled walking in labour from her home in Cook’s Hill to the home of her midwife, Marjorie Simons-Stowe, wife of AME minister Stowe. This midwife lived near Peach Tree Lane, Somerset, and she was required to bring what today we would call “incontinent pads”. In those days you made them yourself by using three layers of newspaper and sewing pieces of sheets over them. They were to be used on the bed during and after delivery. She was confined to bed for two weeks and when she was eventually allowed up it was a frightening experience as she felt faint, unstable and unable to walk unassisted.

The late Frances Goodchild recalled that although telephones were introduced to Bermuda in 1897 very few people had them and so her neighbourhood responsibility was to run at great speed to take a note informing midwife Stowe-Simons of an impending delivery. She was instructed never to read the note. The midwife at that time was living down a narrow lane off Scott’s Hill Road.

Other seniors recalled being delivered by Nurse Jane Robinson, Matron of the Devonshire Rest Home. She was allowed one room to deliver babies. Her standard practise was a glass of orange juice with Epsom salts prior to delivery and if she felt you were anaemic you had a glass of Guinness Milk Stout three times a day following delivery. Her patients always had their abdomens bound for 5 days with unbleached cotton and advised to wear a light weight girdle when they went home.

Many seniors recalled that they were never to wash their hair or take a tub bath for six weeks post delivery. Several recalled women they felt had died as a result of not following this rule.

When the late Iris Davis returned to Bermuda from the Lincoln Hospital in 1945 she went into private practice, delivering babies in her parent’s home in White Hill. Her father, a carpenter, transformed one room into a delivery room and built blocks to elevate the bed so that she could perform deliveries at a comfortable height. Once the placenta (afterbirth) was delivered and examined it was wrapped in newspaper and buried on the property near the house. Patients remained with her for five days.

Often cases were referred by Dr Gordon who occasionally came out to perform a necessary medical procedure. Her father requested that on his travels to America, he purchase his daughter a set of stainless steel instruments. He willingly complied and the instruments were brought into the island duty-free. When I interviewed Miss Davis in 2015 she was still in possession of the instruments and her delivery bag.

Miss Davis recalled the evening a young woman, who was part of a group of entertainers at the Naval Operating Base in Southampton, went into labour during the performance. Her membranes ruptured and she was raced to her home which was only minutes away from the Base Gate on George’s Bay Road. The labouring woman, whom she did not know, was shortly thereafter delivered.

During this same interview Miss Davis described being called in the early hours of the morning to a scheduled delivery on Hog Bay Level. Upon examining the mother she discovered the position of the baby was transverse and therefore could not be delivered at home. She immediately contacted Dr Raymond Nash who lived on Wreck Road. He arrived in his horse and buggy and called for an ambulance to transport the patient to KEMH for an emergency Caesarean section.

They travelled together in his horse and buggy, but upon arrival at the hospital she was denied access to her patient and not allowed into the operating room. During the era of segregated healthcare, Black nurses were not only barred from working at the hospital but definitely not allowed into the operating room unless for domestic purposes. It is reported that Miss Davis and the patient vehemently protested being separated until finally she was gowned up and allowed to be present while Dr Nash performed the Caesarean section. She proudly boasted that she was the first Black nurse in the KEMH operating room.

Shortly after the death of my mother in 1999, I found notes she had written itemising the cost of my birth in 1942. I later found my father’s diary for that same year. At first, I did not recognise it because it was not his usual Collins diary. This one could have easily be overlooked because it was entitled — the Jamaican Mutual Life Assurance Society, Established 1844. This diary provided interesting details and filled in the gaps.

I am a midwife and my focus had always been on home deliveries. To discover that I was born in KEMH during the height of racial segregation captured my attention. For those who are unaware, mothers and babies were separated along racial lines during the 1940s. When this practice was discontinued I do not know, however, during the 1940s there was a ward allocated for coloureds and a separate nursery for their babies.

It was for this reason my father requested and paid for a private room and a private nurse for my mother and me. He did not want us to endure the insults of discrimination that he felt might lead to inadequate and dismissive care.

On December 20, 1942 my father, with his beloved Waterman’s pen, wrote that he had returned from a Lodge Installation at Dockyard at 1am and by 3am my mother began to feel unwell. Nurse Marshman, the Somerset midwife was called at 4am.

At that time, there were only two families on Wefo Road who had phones — the other family being Mr and Mrs “Teddy’” Dias.

The ambulance arrived at 9.30am, driven by Mr Whiting whom my mother further described as Rex Whiting’s brother.

On Monday, December 21, my father wrote: “For unto us a child is born. Today my first child is born — a girl. Edith is in good shape and I returned to school. The day was very cold and Howard [my uncle] sent a cable to Mrs Dowling [my grandmother] who is visiting her sister in America.”

A cable was a form of long distance communication used in that era. Morse code was used to send a message via underwater transoceanic submarine telegraph cables and the message delivered by phone or by hand to the recipient.

My father at that time was the headteacher of the West End School. What a busy time this must have been as he records catching the 5.45pm train to the hospital stop and visiting my mother until 9pm. He often spent the night with friends in Hamilton but had to get back to Somerset early in the morning to distribute The Royal Gazette to the paper boys who came to our house to collect papers for their morning paper route. He also mentions feeding the chickens.

On the Sunday he took the train early to visit my mother then returned to attend church and teach Sunday School at St James’ Church where he was the Sunday School superintendent.

On that particular Sunday he had to leave his bicycle at the hospital stop as it was “giving trouble”. He was worried about having to leave it but it was repaired and sent to Somerset on a later train.

On December 29, he waited the entire day for the delivery of the baby carriage and crib. It was finally delivered that evening at 7pm, which made it impossible to visit my mother.

The exact date of our discharge I do not know as I was unable to find the diary of 1943. What I do know is that ten days after delivery we were still in the hospital and Dr Masters was asked about our discharged.

Below is the itemised cost recorded by my mother:

• Ambulance £2.11.6

• 14 days at 30/- per day £21.0.0

• 14 days (baby) at 6/-per day £3.18.0

• Delivery room £2.2.0

• Dr Masters £10.10.0

• Private nurse £4.0.0

• Crib £9.15.0

• Carriage £12.0.0

• Baby clothes £15.0.0

Twenty-nine years later the doctor who delivered my mother — Dr W.H.C. Masters, delivered my first child. I was privileged to have him as my physician for all those years.

Visiting his office off Harbour Road in Paget, was a pleasant experience. It was set up similar to a living room in ones home. There were upholstered couches, comfortable chairs definitely not in keeping with our sterile modern times. Mrs Floyd, his nurse, sat to a simple desk with a telephone and a stack of charts. There were no computers in those days.

We all sat awaiting our turn and chatted like visitors to a family home. There was a sliding-glass door to the back of the office where you could enjoy a well-manicured lawn with flowers and birds and to the front you could get a glimpse of Hamilton Harbour. No one seemed to be in a hurry.

Dr Masters returned to Bermuda from medical school in 1937. He is described in the book CARE by J. Randolf Williams, as the last of the horse-and-buggy doctors. In 1958 he decided to run for Parliament because there were no doctors there and he was interested in advancing hospital insurance. He won a seat in Paget.

I was not keeping a daily diary in 1971 but my father was still writing his. How fortunate I am that he recorded the details surrounding the birth of his first grandchild — my son. I have continued this tradition by writing on the births of our grandchildren.

When I was admitted to KEMH in 1971 there was only one labour room and there were six of us in various stages of labour with curtains dividing. When delivery was imminent we were transferred to the delivery room. My husband was allowed to be with me in the labour ward but not in the delivery room. Our meals were served on china plates and our hot drinks placed on our tray in silver tea or coffee pots. Warm Horlicks was always served at bedtime and thankfully, I was not there for 14 days.

• Cecille Snaith-Simmons is a retired nurse, historian, writer, Fellow of Bermuda College and author of The Bermuda Cookbook

References:

Freedom Fighters by Ira Phillip 1987

CARE by J. Randolf Williams 1994