Midwife Ida (Mayo) Pittman

Addie Pittman

Addie Pittman of Marystown respected her mother-in-law quite a lot. So did many other people, especially women in the area. Mrs. Ida Pittman, midwife, delivered 1,400 babies.

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW WAS IDA PITTMAN. She was a Mayo, born in Creston North. She moved to Marystown and married Richard Pittman.

Richard was married before, and his wife died in childbirth. They had one son, Patrick. When he grew up he went fishing and he was drowned and buried on Sable Island.

Richard and Ida Pittman had nine children. She's my mother-in-law, really, but we always called her grandmother, like all the children did.

There was a midwife called Mrs. Curdeau, and Mrs. Pittman used to go as a young woman to help her. From that she got interested in it.

She went on her own after her oldest son got married. The night that his son was born, Mrs. Curdeau was sick and couldn't come. Mrs. Pittman went on her own and delivered her first grandson, Pad, Patrick Pittman. He's in his sixties now.

Then she worked with Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris came here in 1924. She delivered approximately fourteen hundred babies. Very, very few complications. She went and stayed eight to ten days and looked after the household. If there were younger children, she looked after them.

Her two older children were girls, so they could help look after the family. Her husband was good in the house too, and he helped her a lot, because he didn't mind if she was gone a week or two.