Full Moon's Daughter

A woman contacted me asking about my last name – Jarecki. She had a story to share about Grandma Jarecki, a midwife in Chicago in the 1900’s. Though not a relative, I wanted to share with you.

Grandma Jarecki as she was called, was well trained in Chicago as a professional midwife in the teens and early 1920’s.  She delivered over 5,000 babies in her time.  When she died, they found boxes of her “receipt books” which I guess were the stubs of the forms that were required to register the birth in those days.  She delivered all of her daughter Josephine’s children (8 then) except for the last one.  That’s where the story begins.  This was 1923 and my grandfather (Josephine’s husband) was having some sort of disagreement with his mother-in-law, Grandma Jarecki.  He decided that for the birth of this child, they wouldn’t use her but instead, call a local doctor (in those days it was very common for the doctor to come to the house for a birth).  Well, bad decision.  The baby was presenting with his left arm first, basically hanging it out of the birth canal.  Obviously, this birth was not going as it should.  In his frustration, the doctor pulled on the arm, hard enough that my uncle (the baby) was seriously injured and his left arm had a great deal of damage, couldn’t hang straight, use it well, etc.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

He tried sticking his hand in the birth canal to push the baby back, twisting, turning, etc.  He ultimately caused horrible damage, tears, infection, etc.  Finally, after literal hours of this, he called my grandfather and said, “I don’t care what your problem is with your mother in law, you have to get her here right now”.  So when she came, she assessed the situation and was heartbroken at what had happened to her daughter.  She immediately knew what to do.  She stood on the bed, lifted her daughter’s legs up around her own hips and at the right moment,  jerked her (sort of) so the baby naturally fell backwards.  He was born normally within  15 minutes.  But, because of all the terrible manipulations by the doctor, she began to develop a terrible infection (this was before antibiotics, gloves, sterile technique, etc.)  So the doctor insisted on admitting her to the hospital.  While there, he decided that the source of the problem was not the uterine infection he’d caused, but appendicitis.  So, not using good common sense, he operated.  She died about 3 days later from horrible sepsis.  She left 9 children motherless but the story could go on and on.

I’m sure you are an excellent midwife and have never run into one like this.  I wish you great success and much happiness in a wonderful field.  I always wished I could have done this but am too old for that now.  I’m looking at retirement in 18 months.  I’m just so happy that the Jarecki name is continued in midwifery.