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Call her "Dr. Mom."

In the days before telephones and doctors, women often took on the role of physician for their families. This was especially true in "birthing babies," when midwives traveled mountain and hollow to help mothers deliver babies, usually at their homes.

Gail Palmer will talk about these mountain medicine women during a program Thursday at the Blount County Public Library. She has been researching them for several years and will soon have a book and DVD available for purchase.

"One of the things that has been a challenge in working on the 'granny women,' or the mountain medicine women, is that there is just not a whole lot of documentation about them and what they did," Palmer said. "I was very excited to find that the Blount County Records Management Office has the birth records book from 1908 to 1912, handwritten, and it includes the names of attendants, such as physicians or midwives. They also have it according to district."

Same kind of training

In the early 20th century, the people called physicians or doctors had about the same kind of training as the midwives did, Palmer explained. "In other words, they were herbalists, and they had no formal training from a medical school or college. The midwives in a way had more experience than doctors because they, themselves, had experienced birth, most of time, and they had probably been doing this longer. They knew what to expect and how to deal with certain things.

"Even when medical doctors started doing deliveries of babies, they had not had any training in class, they had never seen a pregnant woman in practice, they had not ever delivered a baby. It was on-the-job training. That's why, much of the time, they would bring a midwife with them."

To receive a license to be a physician, all they had to do was have two people come with them to the courthouse to verify the individual had been practicing medicine as of a certain date, Palmer said. "Once they were able to determine that, they were provided with a license," she said.

Surprisingly, records kept by the state show the mortality rate for newborns rose about 20 percent when physicians started doing deliveries.

"There were several reasons given for this," Palmer said. "One was, the physician was more eager to jump in when it seemed as though something wasn't going right. Midwives knew enough to wait and see. They were a little less apt to take emergency measures. Plus, these medical doctors were eager to use their new toys, some of the new equipment that had been developed. Also, doctors tended to look at pregnancy more as a disease and they had to treat the disease."

State archives

The state of Tennessee's archives also held information. A report done in 1927 for the Department of Health listed the names of physicians and midwives in Blount, Sevier and Cocke counties. Palmer was elated to find information about midwives in Cades Cove, Walland, Rasar (Richwoods) and a few in Maryville. She also found the name of the registrar in Cades Cove, Orlena Gregory.

Dorothy Boring Boone was born in 1919 in Rasar and was delivered by a midwife, "Aunt" Callie (Caledonia) Boring, shown as "Cal Boring" on the birth certificate.

"On her birth certificate, the midwife signed it, but for the registrar, it was not Orlena Gregory but T.H. Boring," Palmer said. "The way they did that, the midwife would fill out the birth certificate and sign it, and then she would take it to whoever was serving as registrar. Whoever was serving as registrar would bring it to the courthouse here in Maryville."

Palmer will share stories about the midwives at the Thursday program and will show photographs of many of them, including Martha Harveston Oliver, of Cades Cove. Oliver and her husband had 14 children together, and she is said to have delivered all of her own children as well as all of her children's children. She is also listed in the record of births book as having delivered 18 babies from 1908 to 1912, including Palmer's Aunt Mabel Sparks and Uncle William Harty "Tige" Sparks, children of John Marion Sparks and Elizabeth Shuler Sparks.

"I want to share the amazing things these women did and the unexpected stories," Palmer said. "I want to tell the truth about that time period. It is my particular view, but I've tried to be as accurate as possible."