Week 49 #52Ancestors: Craft

Craft brought to mind the women in my line and after much reflection and study then my thought was the art of childbirth fit this theme.  The craft of the Appalachian "granny women" was intriguing to read including a few published about them.  Granny women were the mountain midwives who provided their services in many Appalachian communities well into the 1940's according to an article published in Central Issues of in Anthropology, Vol. 4, Issue 2, December 1982, by Shaunna Scott, Grannies, Mothers and Babies: An Examination of Traditional Southern Appalachian Midwifery.  Her article describes the traditions handed down as childbirth was like a social gathering attended by women who would offer support during the process while the men might be play cards and consume alcohol nearby (however, some fathers were present during the birth).  Younger family members were sent to a neighbor's house until the baby was born.  A community "granny woman" might be invited a few days before the birth to deliver the new babe and she would bring medicinal herbs and perhaps some supernatural techniques to aid during the delivery.  Mothers were encouraged to drink warm beverages and allowed to labor upright.  The placement of burned feathers under the mother's covers might even be used as it was believed they would hasten the delivery.  Various teas were part of the arsenal and used according to the problem at hand.

Angelica was harvested by "Jellico diggers" near the old Jellico Mountains in Campbell Co., Tennessee and thought to alleviate afterbirth pains.

Were there any well known "granny-women" in East Tennessee?  There are a few but one Kentucky woman has a connection to my Ogan family line.  Her name was "Aunt Molly Jackson" but her birth name was Mary Magdalene Garland.  The moniker of "Aunt" may have been acquired when she began working as a midwife in the Kentucky coalmining communities as a young woman.  Her connection to my family is through her half-sister, Sarah Garland, who married Andrew Ogan in Claiborne County, Tennessee (or perhaps the Cumberland Gap) about 1925.  Andrew is my 3rd cousin 2x's removed and he is part of my family tree from on Ancestry.com.

Ancestors of Andrew Ogan

Why was Aunt Molly Jackson so well known?  Her family had worked in the coal mining communities of Kentucky and, by the time she was 30, she had been married at least twice and given birth to two children with her second husband, who was a coalminer, named James Stewart.  Both children had died by the time she was enumerated on the 1910 census.  By 1930, she had married another coalminer named William Jackson and was working as a midwife in her community located in Bell County, Kentucky.  According to Wikipedia, she delivered 884 babies during this career.  Molly had become active in the United Mine Workers Union and in 1931 came to the attention of the Dreiser Committee (a group investigating the violence against coalminers and their unions by coal operators that became known as the Harlan County War).  The other craft she became famously known for was singing and writing protest songs like Ragged, Hungry Blues that she sang for the Committee. In December 1931, she traveled to New York to raise money for the Harlan County coalminers and spent most of the next decade there.

Source: Newspapers.com, The Standard Union (Brooklyn, New York), 02 Dec 1931, page 7

Andrew Ogan and Sarah also moved to New York by 1935 due to the violence caused by unionization of the coalminers.  Unfortunately, Andrew was suffering from tuberculosis and when his condition worsened then he moved back to Knox County, Kentucky leaving his family behind and he succumbed to the disease on August 14, 1938 at the age of 33.  He is buried in the Detherage Cemetery in Knox County.

During Aunt Molly Jackson's musical career, she performed with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Earl Robinson, Will Greer, her half-brother Jim Garland, and half-sister Sarah Ogan Gunning.  A couple of biographies state she was involved in a bus accident in Ohio and became incapacitated which forced her to live life in her New York apartment.  I could not verify this and it seems that information regarding her life could be difficult to ascertain as discovered by folklorist Archie Green who attempted to interview her in the late 50's.  She died in Sacramento, California on August 31, 1960 at 79 years of age.

Obituary of Aunt Molly Jackson has some incorrect information as Bill Jackson was most likely her third husband.

Hungry Ragged Blues, song lyrics

www.protestsonglyrics.net

Lyrics: Aunt Molly Jackson

Music: Aunt Molly Jackson
Year: 1930
Genre: A Cappella Folk
Country: USA

(Part I)

I'm sad and weary, I've got the hungry ragged blues;
I'm sad and weary, I've got the hungry ragged blues;
Not one penny in the pocket to buy one thing I need to use.

I woke up this morning with the worst blues I ever had in my life;
I woke up this morning with the worst blues I ever had in my life;
Not a bite to cook for breakfast, poor coal miner's wife.

When my husband works in the coal mines he loads a car most every trip;
When my husband works in the coal mines he loads a car most every trip;
Then he goes to the office at the evening and gets denied his scrip⁽²⁾.
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.n
Just because it took all he made that day to pay his mine expense;
Just because it took all he made that day to pay his mine expense;
A man that'll work for coalite⁽³⁾ and carbide⁽⁴⁾ ain't got a lick of sense.

(Part II)

All the women in this coal camp are sitting with bowed-down heads;
All the women in this coal camp are sitting with bowed-down heads;
Ragged and barefooted, and their children a-cryin' for bread.

This mining town I live in is a dead and lonely place;
All the women in this coal camp are sitting with bowed-down heads;
Where pity and starvation are pictured on every face.
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
Oh, don't go under that mountain with the slate hanging over your head;
Don't go under that mountain with the slate hanging over your head;
And work for just coalite and carbide and our children a-crying for bread.

Oh, listen, friends and workers, please take a friend's advice;
Oh, listen, friends and workers, please take a friend's advice;
Dont' load no more, don't pull no more, till you get a living price.

If you want to listen to one of her recordings then here is a link to one found in the audio catalog of The Library of Congress: Roll on Buddy