Based on a true story
St. Paul, Minnesota is a city along the banks of the rich river called the Mississippi, the river originates, sleeps almost at the top of Minnesota and runs across the country, into St. Louis, and into New Orleans , and in the Gulf of Mexico, this is where I was born, in the heart of the Midwest, you could say. It transports an enormous amount of water and its tributaries are innumerable. But this sketch, or story, is not about the Mississippi or even about myself, but about a failed attempt, a situation, to deprive a mother of her infant son, her newborn; the year is 1947, full date: October 7th, the location: within the city of St. Paul, in the heart of the city, in a well-known Hospital, it is early morning, Indian summer as they say, the leaves of Autumn are all about, especially the colors of a faint rainbow. The cornfields outside the city are bare and the air is fresh, a woman is taken to the hospital the night before giving birth to a live child, she is not married and lives in the poor area of the city, on a street called Igelheart, her name is Elsie.
“Take her to the delivery room,” says a nurse, “I’ll see her soon.”
There are several other women there also about to have babies, one who has been having a difficult labor for the last two days, she is on her third day (she will be in labor for thirty-six hours), her name is Isabella, she smiles at Elsie, they may well have been friends, but it won’t work that way, her son will die in the morning and the nurses will try to erase all traces of the stay, change some things, but I’m getting ahead of my story.
Isabella spoke to Elsie, in broken English, and mostly Polish, she was seventeen, spoke little English, and Elsie, also had Russian and Polish roots, and spoke a little Polish, or at least understood a little, and spoke . Good English. Many families back then came from the Baltic area of Europe to America, especially during and before the First World War (because there was a lot of famine and the uprooting of the war seeped all over the land and it promised to be a long and sad war, etc.), and their families (both Isabella and Elsie) extended families, were part of this group, this legacy, and in Isabella’s case, they, her family, could barely speak English, so she became part of this inheritance, as it was for Elsie’s mother and father, and therefore this was the case at hand, and when they arrived at the hospital, there were bilingual Polish nurses to help if necessary.
Elsie was twenty-seven at the time, she had a son, Michael, he was two years past this new birth and had just started working at ‘Swifts & Co.’, as a meat packer, in the bacon department. , she would work there for twenty-two years before the place closed. Her pregnancy and delivery were going well.
She was not married (as I mentioned above), and had been dating two men at the same time, in fact, they were both friends with each other, but unknowingly, and of course in those far off days, it was considered a deeper sin. If a woman ever did such a thing, whereas it was normal for a man to do this on a weekly basis, and of course for the man, she did it without shame, sin, or even an ounce of regret, in fact, she did it with fireworks, he bragged about it in bars and garnered standing applause from his audience.
Well, the nurse who took Elsie to the delivery room, told her history to the rest of the nurses, and without missing an iota of information, it would be enough to say that she was the talk of the room and the single mom, now slave to her sins, her reputation spilled over, no more skeletons in the closet, you might say.
His father worked, was a painter and owned a restaurant, but some of his sisters were present, the rest would come later – there were five children alive, of eight, three had died – two were waiting in the waiting room, near the living room. Of childbirth. Elsie hadn’t started dilating yet, no contractions, but Isabella was having them, had been having them, and then it stopped, it was a long ordeal for her, the nurse had told the doctor they might have to consider an incision , a C-section to deliver the baby, so the woman wouldn’t die in childbirth, she was exhausted to the point that her breathing was feeble at best.
Most of what you are hearing would be silent, or at best cutting news, were it not given sporadically to Elsie’s son Dennis some fifty years later down the road of life, which is not it would have been a big deal so it’s not know so how can it make a big difference and that’s how it went and it had to be closed in 1947 it was invaluable information and its best forgotten on the other hand invaluable information it leaks many times, right? no, if not directly, then by osmosis, and maybe Isabella would never know the truth of the whole thing, and she surely wouldn’t have agreed to that, I think. In any case, she couldn’t read a word of English, a home-made mama, you might say; but the nurses think that she will inherit the new born child, yet yet to be born; maybe the intentions of the nurses were good, meant to be good, because there was no gain for them per se, in the sense that they wanted the child to have full parenting, no lack of parenting for the child, maybe Maybe a father and a mother made more sense, and since Elsie already had a child, well, it might be better for her to, you know, raise one vs. two, handing over the child, unknowingly handing over the child, but again, if you don’t know, then you are unaware of the crime in progress, and times were not easy for a man, let alone a woman. And so I repeat to myself, perhaps the nurses had these intentions, although unethical for their profession; and at this point, let me add the doctor to this little unfolding crime scene: at least he would escape unharmed, and that would be my crime to the nurses.
It was now around 3:00 am and Isabella and Elsie were taken to a large room, a room divided only by a movable cloth divider, the doctor was busy with Isabella, her contractions had worsened and she was nine inches dilated. In other words, about to have the child, her water had broken hours before, and Elsie had dilated to seven, and her water had broken right after Isabella’s. Both were on their way to being mothers. Isabella’s husband was in the waiting room, with Elsie’s sisters, there were three of them now, Betty, Anne, and Rose, and her brother Wally, with whom she did so many things when she was young, becoming friends with Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
In fact, it was time for Isabella to have a child naturally or induced, a difficult labor she was having, and it seemed so, for she was pale, the dark rims around her eyes, her hair matted like a thorny bush. , but she was alive, and the baby was coming out, it was pushing, pushing, pushing, Elsie could hear its cries, as for the child there was no movement in its extremities, the eyelids, nothing at all of the child moved impulsively- it came out silent, too quiet, very quiet! But the nurses silenced him, smiled at Isabella, and took the baby to another bed.
The nurses looked at each other, the doctor fell silent, a nurse whispered in his ear (clean the baby, spank him, don’t cry, Elsie noted the silence, waited for the crying, the crying that never came), and he nodded. Head to the nurses, and Isabella was rushed out of the room into a private room, now Elsie was alone, except for the child in the third bed in the room, and the dead child remained in that bed, behind the curtained divider, and the doctor came over to Elsie, it was now 4:00 am, there weren’t many people in the room, and those that were, were half asleep, that is, except for the crew in Elsie’s room.
Now Elsie was nine, and she was pushing, pushing, she knew how to do better the second time around, she didn’t need the nurses’ advice, she also knew they didn’t care about single mothers, and so the boy went through without much. problem A nurse held the baby while Elsie closed her eyes for a moment, but only for a moment, but that was after she saw that the child was breathing, what color it was, a few other things; then, when he opened them, he waited for the cry of the child that oh so beautiful first cry in life, the cry that says ‘here I am’, perhaps God himself put that first cry in the heart of the child when he was surrounded by water Inside the woman’s womb, like in the heart of a whale, protected from all harm and obstacles from the outside world, it was to be a reminder to the mother that the child had arrived alive, so the child was out of the womb. belly all the way now; the nurse had gone behind the other curtain, swapped the babies, the live one for the dead one, consequently, to swap them with the mothers. Elsie saw the rear of the nurse go behind the curtain and called out, “Where’s my baby? Bring him here at once.” she even she knew he was a boy.
The nurse now remained silent with both children, one in her hands, the living one, the dead one lying on the bed, wrapped in a thin white blanket, actually both looked a lot alike, like two identical, raw chickens. and reddish in color, except that one had turned a little pale. She left the child alive, picked up the dead, went over to Elsie to tell her that her child was stillborn, the nurse stood on the back of the bed, about to do her death part, only to hear the sound. words:
“Bring me my son now!” Elsa asked.
“Wait a minute Elsie, they’re cleaning it up, I, I’ll get it for you in a bit.” The nurse said, puzzled.
And it was only a moment, when he gave the child back to her alive, and Elsie held on tight. One can only conjecture, to give a solid reason, ie why the nurse returned her heart from a mother to her original, we will never know the true reason for this, at least not in this world anyway, but I can modestly say. that I believe the boy’s guardian angel was already hard at work, as were Satan’s dark intruding demons. And so my reader friends, is how I came into this world.
Notes on this Story, story based on facts: written on 5-28-2008; information over the years from Elsie, gathered and given to her son, and from that this story was built, not all details are exact, some conjecture was added, which seemed only logical or possible for the time and situation , and where there was no other place to take the story. Isabella is a fictitious name; although the mother endured having a dead child, and the child was about to be presented to Elsie, Elsie knew that the dead man in her arms was dead, horrified, the nurse was about to say what she had planned to say, when she went to get the live, the trauma was over. Of course, this event was hushed up by the hospital, the nurses, and even Elsie for nearly half a century, not today. But she did not die, having her up to her; and I thank you for her bold actions. It was a time when perhaps such things happened, and justified for a variety of reasons, perhaps under the stamp of humanity’s personal God. I don’t mention the name of the hospital, not that I’m afraid or reprisal, it’s easy enough for the curious reader to find out where I was born, but as a 60 year old, I don’t mind pointing fingers, I just hope they have more ethical nurses now .
