Mrs. Pittman would cover Marystown, Creston North and South, Little Bay, Beau Bois, Spanish Room, and sometimes Jean de Baie. But now there was a midwife in Jean de Baie. 'Twas only in an emergency that she'd go to Spanish Room or Jean de Baie.

She was a big woman, about 250 to 270 pounds. One woman told me she was so lightfooted, she was the only woman she ever knew who could go up a stair and not let it squeak. And she went on horse and slide, and dory. She was very nimble although she was very big.

In the thirties the times were so poor. Years ago they used to have beds with steel laths on them. She said sometimes all they had was an old fisherman's coat under them. She'd have to come home and get towels and bed clothes to make diapers for the baby. It was all flannelette diapers then. She'd cook for the family while she was there. Five dollars was the fee, when she got it. She didn't always get it. The last few years she got six dollars. Sometimes they'd offer a quarter of mutton or something.

She stayed with them and if they needed a doctor she'd send for the doctor. He always came, because he knew that when he was sent for by Mrs. Pittman, he was needed. They got along very well together.

She not only delivered babies. When people were sick, she went and stayed up with them and visited, made them soup. When they died she "laid them out" as they used to say years ago. She'd dress them, and wash them. She was a wonderful woman.

I don't know if there was as much superstition about childbirth as there was about birthmarks. For instance, they didn't want the women to sit with their legs crossed because it would make the birth more difficult.

She told us one instance. There was a young man who threw a clam at a pregnant woman. When the baby was born, right on her leg was the print of the clam shell.

Another time a man was lighting the lamp, and the match fell on the woman's cheek. When the child was born there was a birthmark on his cheek that they said was like the brimstone on a match.

You wouldn't want to frighten a pregnant mother because it would bring on premature labour. And of course they weren't allowed to drink or smoke. That was out of the question then, in those days.