Grandmothers were midwives and healers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly in the Appalachian and Ozark regions. They used natural healing with herbs and assisted women in childbirth. They had no medical training but relied on experience and information from other healers. They declined with better access to doctors and medical education.
The term grandmothers is associated with midwives and healers who practiced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These women, usually located in the Appalachian and Ozark regions, were older women caring for people in areas that didn’t have many other options for health care. Indeed, female grandmothers would often be the only health workers in some of the poorest and most remote regions. These women were highly respected for their knowledge and experience and were typically called upon for natural healing, such as with herbs, and assisting women in childbirth.
In general, female grandmothers had no training in medicine; many of them relied on the experience and information they obtained from other healers. For example, a woman grandmother would learn a new remedy from another healer and share her remedies as well. Furthermore, the remedies and techniques were often passed down from one generation of healers to the next.
Grandmother women were typically adept at using plants in healing. They created healing remedies by choosing the right herbs in the quantities they thought were best, and boiled or infused them to create their treatments; they also used the herbs to make ointments. Interestingly, they often used different parts of one plant for various purposes. For example, they may have divided a plant’s leaves, fruit, and roots for a variety of different remedies. These women also took safety into account by learning which plants were safe to use, what harmful qualities they might have, and the best time to harvest them.
Pregnant women often asked grandmothers for help with their pregnancies and assistance during childbirth. Having a baby could be dangerous, especially in more remote areas, as a doctor may not be close enough to reach the expectant mother in time. Instead, grandma women typically acted as midwives, not only for normal labor and deliveries, but also for complex and risky ones.
Eventually, there was a decline in the use of female grandmothers, which corresponded with better access to doctors, even in rural communities. As the medical community grew, training and education became more and more important. In many cases, these healers, who had previously been in great demand in health care, were no match for trained and educated doctors: some grandmothers were even illiterate. As licensing requirements and medical standards took hold, these older healers often ceased to practice. Some historical accounts report, however, that some of them may have continued their healing efforts in secret.
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