Jackson · Hinds County
A contemporary midwife practicing in Jackson, documented through a public professional listing.
Lives carried across Mississippi
The Midwives
Each name opens a story of skilled hands, long journeys, apprenticeship, family trust, and care sustained under unequal conditions.
A statewide field of care
Across Mississippi
Choose an illuminated county. The map will open a local chapter and introduce the women remembered there.
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Search by name, place, or work. Each doorway opens a focused account rather than reducing a life to a row in a registry.
68 lives held here
28 places remembered
Meridian · Lauderdale County
Meridian newspapers identify Amelia Sherlock as a midwife practicing in the city in 1902. Her surname appears in more than one spelling, a reminder that even when newspapers preserve a name, the archive can introduce uncertainty that later research must keep visible.
Biloxi · Harrison County
Angeline Bailey was identified in 1975 as Biloxi’s practicing lay midwife. The newspaper photographed her holding a newborn and described a community that still depended on her care, preserving a glimpse of the closeness and responsibility of the work.
Jackson · Hinds County
A contemporary midwife practicing in Jackson, documented through a public professional listing.
Woodville–Centreville corridor · Wilkinson / Amite Counties
Aunt Caroline is remembered in Anne Moody’s account as one of the midwives who served Black families between Woodville and Centreville for decades. Her story recalls a time when midwives were essential to nearly every birth in the community.
Woodville–Centreville corridor · Wilkinson / Amite Counties
Aunt Mary Green was remembered with Aunt Caroline as a midwife for Black families along the Woodville-Centreville corridor. Her name carries the memory of women whose work was woven into the everyday survival of rural communities.
Indianola · Sunflower County
Bertha Henderson Matthews was a certified lead midwife in Indianola whose work reached across Sunflower County. Remembered by families and physicians alike, she delivered babies in her home, cared for mothers through segregation, and continued serving until illness forced her retirement.
Tylertown · Walthall County
Bertha Parker of Tylertown began learning midwifery as a girl, training under her grandmother before earning a Board of Health license. State records credit her with 1,919 births, a record of skill, endurance, and generations of community trust.
Louin · Jasper County
Bertha Smiley of Louin was praised in 1934 for a model delivery room and for helping raise standards among Black midwives. Her work shows the care, cleanliness, and professionalism midwives brought into rural birth spaces.
Monticello · Lawrence County
Bessie Sutton began receiving payment for deliveries in the 1920s and retired in 1962. Her remembered span of practice reaches across four decades, while changing fees—from about $1.50 to $20—register how the value and economics of this labor changed over time.
Palmer’s Crossing · Forrest County
Catherine Lyons was honored at retirement with hymns, prayer, scripture, and a health sermon. The ceremony shows that midwives were not only workers, but respected community figures whose service was publicly blessed.
Holly Springs · Marshall County
Della Falkner of Holly Springs documented her professional history in a 1937 booklet naming 133 babies she had delivered. Her record shows a broad practice, serving Black and white families, with only two stillbirths among the births listed.
Ruleville · Sunflower County
Elnora Bluett of Ruleville was recorded among Sunflower County’s remaining midwives in 1973. Her listing preserves a trace of local care in a period when older systems of Black community birth work were being pushed aside.
Utica · Hinds County
Born in Utica in 1913, Estella Schuler was remembered in her obituary as a licensed Mississippi midwife. Her later life in Waterloo and Chicago also included work as an elevator operator and instructor, placing midwifery within a longer history of Black women’s labor and migration.
Rocky Springs / Willows · Claiborne County
In 1939, Estelle W. Christian had recently delivered a baby when she recognized symptoms of disease in another woman. She wrote the public-health nurse and carried health information through her community, evidence that her work extended beyond delivery into observation, education, and connection to care.
Natchez · Adams County
Described in Natchez historical sources as a well-known Black midwife by 1900.
New Albany area · Union County
Known as Aunt Hattie, Hattie Stone traveled into New Albany and waited near the courthouse for families who needed her to bring babies. The account remembers midwifery as professional work that required movement, availability, and a public place where need could find her.
Lee County · Lee County
Henrietta Shambry was a Lee County midwife who helped train Johnnie Lee Smith before Smith practiced independently. Her legacy lives not only in the babies she delivered, but in the knowledge she passed on.
Port Gibson · Claiborne County
Known as Mama Janie, Janie Clara Breckenridge served Claiborne County for nearly five decades and may also have delivered in Jefferson County. Families remembered her staying overnight, washing clothes, and caring for households. A surviving photograph shows her demonstrating how she wrapped and weighed a baby with a hand scale.
Doddsville · Sunflower County
Janie Thomas of Doddsville was recorded as a Sunflower County midwife in 1973. She belongs to the generation of midwives who continued serving through a changing medical world and whose names deserve restoration to public memory.
Lee County · Lee County
Johnnie Lee Smith began working in Lee County in 1938 and is credited with delivering 523 babies. After first assisting Henrietta Shambry, she built a long practice that made her part of hundreds of family beginnings.
Palmer’s Crossing · Forrest County
Josephine Franklin of Palmer’s Crossing was honored alongside Mollie Merrill for long midwifery service. Their combined record of more than 500 babies and 75 years of work speaks to the depth of their community trust.
Indianola · Sunflower County
Julia Thomas of Indianola was listed among Sunflower County’s midwives in 1973. Her record helps preserve the story of local women who carried community birth work into the late twentieth century.
Hattiesburg · Forrest County
Hattiesburg newspaper coverage identifies Laura McLeod as a midwife in Forrest County. The brief record establishes that she was present and practicing, while leaving the scope of her service and the voices of the families she attended unrecorded.
Greenville · Washington County
A 1943 Greenville report describes Lena Collins as one of Washington County’s trusted midwives. Her name survives in a public-health enforcement notice, a narrow official frame that confirms her practice while obscuring the relationships and daily labor that earned that trust.
New Albany · Union County
Lillery Knox was Olivia Jefferies’s aunt and a practicing midwife in New Albany. In 1949 she brought eighteen-year-old Olivia to a delivery and began teaching her, preserving a moment when knowledge moved through kinship, observation, and shared work.
Corinth area · Alcorn County
Lou Taylor was a Corinth-area midwife and the mother and teacher of Mittie Patterson. Through her daughter, Taylor’s midwifery knowledge continued into another generation of care.
New Albany area · Union County
Documented in a 1942 Union County group photograph of midwives.
Rankin County / Jackson area · Rankin County
Lovica McAfee of Rankin County delivered a child born July 28, 1927. Her name, carefully spelled in oral history, reminds us how a single remembered birth can restore a midwife to the public record.
Bolivar County · Bolivar County
A surviving Mississippi State Board of Health permit identifies Lucretia Turner as authorized to practice midwifery in Bolivar County in 1958. It preserves her name, county, year, and official standing, while the births she attended and families she served remain outside its narrow frame.
New Albany area · Union County
Documented in a 1942 Union County group photograph of midwives.
Greenwood area · Leflore County
A 1939 newspaper report identifies Mamie Reed as a midwife working in the Greenwood area. The clipping establishes her presence and paid practice. The surviving record does not preserve her training, the families she served, or her own account of the work.
Clarksdale · Coahoma County
Mandy Jackson practiced in Clarksdale by 1917. Decades later, a newspaper account relied on her presence at a birth, showing how a midwife’s memory and testimony could preserve facts that official paperwork did not.
Jackson area · Hinds County
A 1940 newspaper report identifies Marie Bedwell as a licensed midwife working in Hinds County. The surviving notice preserves her name, place, and recognized practice, but not the families she served or her own account of the work.
Gulfport · Harrison County
Martha King began attending births in the Gulfport area by 1942. Three decades later, families still named her as the woman who had helped bring them into the world, evidence of a practice remembered across generations.
Drew · Sunflower County
Martha Poole of Drew was listed among Sunflower County midwives in 1973. Her name honors the women whose labor sustained families and whose histories often survive only in public health lists and community memory.
Noxubee County · Noxubee County
Referenced as an antebellum midwife who continued her practice after emancipation.
Tunica · Tunica County
Mary Cox of Tunica remembered Mary Osborne as the woman who helped establish the Tunica midwife club in 1923. Cox’s words preserve the pride of a midwife whose work had been inspected and found faithful.
Louin · Jasper County
Born in Louin in 1923, Mary D. Moncrief worked as a midwife in Mississippi in her early years. After moving to Columbus, Ohio, in 1943, she labored in food production and domestic service and became deeply active in church and community life.
Indianola · Sunflower County
Mary Lyles of Indianola was among the Sunflower County midwives recorded in 1973. Her presence in the records helps document the final generation of lay midwives who served Delta families before hospital birth became dominant.
Bolton / Edwards / Jackson · Hinds County
Mary White Watson of the Bolton, Edwards, and Jackson area was a seamstress and midwife who delivered more than 500 babies. Trained by Sadie Singleton, she attended health department meetings and served families until her retirement in 1976.
Itta Bena · Leflore County
Matilda Holt Mitchell of Itta Bena was praised for the arrangement of her model delivery room, prepared bed, and sanitary setup. Her story shows the skill and discipline midwives used to make homes safer places for birth.
Doddsville · Sunflower County
Millie B. Cotton of Doddsville was listed as a Sunflower County midwife in 1973. Her name stands for the rural practitioners who continued to answer families’ needs even as official midwifery practice was disappearing.
New Albany area · Union County
Documented in a 1942 Union County group photograph of midwives.
Plantation community; place not yet identified · Mississippi county not yet identified
By 1939, Minerva P. was already practicing and had four expectant mothers awaiting her care, though she did not yet hold a license. After medical treatment, she returned on April 24, 1940, to renew her license, showing how community need and state permission did not always move together.
Vicksburg · Warren County
Minnie Morris was remembered in her 1952 obituary as a well-known Vicksburg midwife. The notice also places her within church, family, and fraternal networks, allowing her to enter public memory as a community member as well as a practitioner.
Corinth · Alcorn County
Mittie Patterson served Corinth-area families for about 45 years. Trained first by her mother, Lou Taylor, and later by Dr. R. E. Honnell, she worked through a world where payment could come in cash, goods, or gratitude.
Vicksburg · Warren County
Mollie Gilmore of Vicksburg kept detailed records of her work, including deliveries, prenatal visits, infant visits, vaccination encouragement, and demonstrations of a model delivery room. Her practice shows midwives as health educators as well as birth attendants.
Palmer’s Crossing · Forrest County
Mollie Merrill of Palmer’s Crossing was honored as one of Forrest County’s oldest and most faithful helpers of “the stork.” Together with Josephine Franklin, she represented decades of service and hundreds of births.
Mississippi; community not yet identified · Mississippi county not yet identified
Nola Haynes is remembered by her great-granddaughter as a traditional Mississippi midwife who attended births within her family. This family testimony restores her name and vocation while leaving the dates, community, and full extent of her practice open for further memory and research.
New Albany · Union County
At eighteen, Olivia Jefferies assisted her aunt Lillery Knox at a 1949 delivery and was told it was time to learn midwifery. She later recalled that they delivered babies and returned to provide postpartum care, making follow-through part of the work rather than an afterthought.
Itta Bena · Leflore County
Otha Bell Jones of Itta Bena entered midwifery through apprenticeship, learning under Sister Nancy Wright. By the time she received her state permit, she had already assisted dozens of women, showing how formal recognition often followed years of practical service.
New Albany area · Union County
Documented in a 1942 Union County group photograph of midwives.
Swiftown · Leflore County
Rosanna Redd of Swiftown was recognized at a 1950 Leflore County gathering for the highest delivery record of the previous year: 21 births, with every mother and child reported living. The recognition places her among scores of midwives meeting, learning, and being evaluated together.
Indianola · Sunflower County
Sadie Mae Benford served Sunflower County families for 24 years and estimated that she had attended 600 to 700 births. She remembered answering calls at every hour, staying with mothers, and returning for three days after a baby arrived.
Bolton · Hinds County
Sadie Mae Singleton of Bolton trained for two years under experienced local midwives beginning in 1942. Her work reflects a rural economy of care, where a midwife might be paid in money, hogs, pigs, or whatever a family could offer.
Monroe County · Monroe County
Sallie Mae Brock of Monroe County helped lead a 1944 effort to set fair delivery fees for midwives. Her organizing shows that midwives were workers, professionals, and advocates for the value of their labor.
Collins · Covington County
Known affectionately as Mama Pank, Sally May Hatcher served families around Collins as a county midwife. Family memory remembers her coming into homes, catching babies, and standing beside mothers when birth still depended on trusted community care.
Welcome community / Learned; Utica; Edwards; Bolton · Hinds County
Sally Montgomery served families in the Welcome community near Learned and across Utica, Edwards, and Bolton. Remembered by her granddaughter, she worked from about 1929 to 1952, trained under her mother, and kept records of the children she delivered.
Lula / Friars Point · Coahoma County
Sally Rhodes of the Lula community in Coahoma County was remembered by her descendant as a midwife. Born in 1859 and living to age 91, she carried birth knowledge through the long aftermath of slavery into the twentieth century.
Leflore County / Itta Bena area · Leflore County
Sister Nancy Wright was an experienced Leflore County midwife and teacher. She trained Otha Bell Jones by watching, guiding, and trusting her hands, preserving the apprenticeship tradition that carried midwifery knowledge from one woman to another.
Jackson · Hinds County
A 1914 Vicksburg newspaper report names Sophie Foster as a Jackson midwife and a witness to a birth. The notice confirms her place in the city’s birth work, even though the historical record preserves little about the rest of her practice.
Hazlehurst · Copiah County
T. J. Handy’s surviving permit records official authorization to practice in Copiah County. The document preserves a name, a place, and the state’s terms for midwifery, while the daily calls, households served, and knowledge carried remain beyond the permit’s narrow frame.
Jackson metro · Hinds County
A contemporary midwife and birth-justice leader documented through a public organizational profile.
Tupelo area · Lee County
A contemporary midwife serving North Mississippi, documented through a public directory listing.
Gulfport · Harrison County
Viola Spann served Gulfport families for more than a decade and was credited in 1975 with attending about 450 births. A newspaper portrait shows her seated beside her midwife bag, a record of the tools, preparation, and sustained availability her work required.
Jackson · Hinds County
Virginia Scott Ford is remembered as a granny midwife connected to Jackson’s Farish and Cohea Street neighborhood and the Scott Ford Houses. Her name anchors this broader history in a place where Black birth work, family, and community memory meet.
Monroe County · Monroe County
Virginia Thompson joined Sallie Mae Brock in Monroe County’s 1944 effort to establish a countywide delivery fee. Her leadership helps recover midwives as women who negotiated, organized, and defended the worth of their work.
How the record found them
A newspaper is not a whole life.
Black midwives often entered newspapers when an institution looked at them: a health department inspected a bag, a court requested testimony, an official enforced a rule, or a community marked a retirement or death. These reports can confirm a woman’s name, place, and practice. They cannot stand in for her voice, her full working life, or the families who trusted her.
Presence and practice
Stories lead with what a source can establish: a name, community, period of work, training, births attended, or recognition by families.
Policing and regulation
Arrest reports, court notices, permit rules, inspections, and fines are interpreted together as evidence of how Black midwifery was watched and constrained. Allegations are never treated as proven biography.
Silence and uncertainty
The archive rarely preserves the midwife’s own account. Conflicting spellings, missing outcomes, and absent family testimony remain visible rather than being filled with certainty.
Published portraits appear where the clipping clearly identifies the person. Exact street addresses remain withheld, and each image stays connected to its newspaper citation.
The scale behind the names
The surviving names are only a fraction of the field.
State totals make visible the breadth of work that individual records can only begin to describe.
midwives were recorded in Mississippi’s 1921 survey; 99 percent of those surveyed were African American.
Mississippi births were attended by midwives in 1967.
of births to Black mothers were attended by midwives in 1967. The state report used the historical term “nonwhite.”
Sources: oral-history thesis supplied to the project; Mississippi State Board of Health, Vital Statistics Mississippi 1967, Table B.
Help memory travel farther
A name can reopen a history.
These stories come through permits, letters, reports, photographs, published histories, and family testimony. If a midwife cared for your family, your knowledge can restore detail, correct a spelling, identify a face, or return a woman to the place where her work was known.
Share a name, photograph, correction, or family memoryThis map is a doorway into remembered lives, not a claim to every route or address. County boundaries come from the U.S. Census Bureau and are stored locally with the monument. Story citations remain beside the people they help us remember.