Susie Cook was the daughter of Rev. William Floyd Cook and his wife Sarah Alice Parker and the granddaughter of Ethan Allen Cook and greatgranddaughter of Hence Marvin Cook. Born on July 1, 1901, Susie grew up in the mountains of Jackson County, North Carolina. In 1919 she married a young man named Lawrence McMahan and they lived on Caney Fork. They began their family and before long they had 11 children including a set of twins born in 1928 which were her fifth and sixth children. Soon after the twins were born, she helped a lady deliver a baby before the midwife showed up. Susie felt a calling to take up midwiving herself and delivered around 2000 babies during her 35 year career.
If you never had the chance to meet Aunt Susie (Grandpa Will Cook's sister) you'll really enjoy reading about her...if you did, you've probably already seen this article written in 1985 for the Sylva Herald. But enjoy it again!
In Jesus,
Dan J.
When a person has been responsible for delivering some 2000 babies, besides having 11 children of her own, you can figure that person knows a lot about childbirthing. Susie Cook McMahan is 84 years old now (born July 1, 1901) and she has retired from the job that kept her busy for more than 40 years... the job of being a midwife.
Susie hadn't set out to become a midwife but after delivering her first baby she felt it was her calling. And through the thick and thin of it, she never lost a single mother or a child (as Susie would say) born with an ounce of life in it.
Susie married back in 1919 a young man named Lawrence McMahan and they lived on Caney Fork. They began their family and just after Susie had her twins (her fifth and sixth children) in 1928, she got caught up in what would turn out to be a career for her.
In Susie's own words this is how she got her start:
'I happened up to a place one day where a woman was having a baby. The father said, 'Susie, you know what to do,' and I fixed it.'
A midwife had been called but didn't arrive until after the birth. Susie said by then, the midwife didn't have to do a thing. Mother and baby were both fine.'
That baby is now almost 60 years old, but he is still one of Susie's babies. I.C. Parker, now a resident in Ohio, came to a homecoming up in Brasstown a couple of years ago and had his picture taken with the woman who delivered him. Susie keeps that picture framed and hanging in the living room of her home on Cope Creek Road.
There was a real need for midwives back in Susie's youth. There were few doctors to cover the rural mountainous areas. Susie had to walk miles back into the mountains sometimes to deliver a baby. She often spent two or three days with the mother before she left her. She seldom received any material reward for her work, but she just couldn't refuse to help. She recalls being given a pig once. Sometimes she was given a few chickens or home canned foods.
But one real reason midwives were so greatly needed was because of the poverty in the area. Few of the people Susie tended could afford to pay a doctor if they could have gotten one. There were more times than not Susie delivered a child not only to find there wasn't a stitch of anything in the house to put on it for clothing. But Susie was prepared. She had her big white bag with her in which she always found just what she needed.
One family Susie said, had four children and when she arrived they were all out in the snow 'with shoes or nothin' on.' The next morning, Susie had her son take her around to gather up some things for the family and she 'fixed 'em up.'
When Susie realized she had a gift to help save mothers and babies who might have otherwise died, she began to take training at the courthouse in Sylva. Under Mrs. Roberta Sauter, county health nurse, Susie learned how to disinfect soap and materials needed during the deliveries and became what she called a 'B' nurse.
Susie's white bag contained two pans for washing up, disinfected soap in a jar, and items Susie had to make herself including 'leggins' for the mother made out of sheets, sheeting pads, a gown and mask for Susie to wear, and a cloth Susie could put on her head (headband). She carried eye drops furnished by the state to put in the babies eyes after birth.
Her bag also included sugar bags (which were cloth back then) which she had washed and placed in bottles to keep them disinfected. These she used as bands to wrap around the baby after tying off the naval cord. Susie said doctors used to claim the bands would help the babies have a strong back. Before applying the band however, Susie had to tie the cord one inch from the naval then tie again one inch further, and cut in between.
Susie had to file a birth certificate for each child she delivered at the county courthouse and the records were reported to Raleigh. She also kept very accurate records at her home. Unfortunately, Susie's Caney Fork home burned in February 1952. She remembers it well because it was on the birthday of her son Troy and she had baked him a birthday cake. All her records were destroyed, along with the cake.
Susie has many stories to tell about her many trips to deliver babies. But one of the worst times she can remember occurred during the 1940 flood. Susie had been summoned to a woman in labor. SHe had to cross a flooding creek, so a man took her on horseback. The water was rough and logs kept floating down until they washed the horse down the creek. The soon to be father was on the other shore 'hollerin' all the time,' said Susie.
The horse finally made it out of the creek with its riders, but it was too late. The baby had been born with what Susie calls a 'veil' over its head. It smothered to death, and she couldn't bring it back no matter how hard she tried.
'The father could've saved it,' said Susie, 'but he didn't know what to do.'
Susie said the 'veil' can be easily removed by flipping it over th back of the baby's head and removing it so they can breathe. According to Sylva obstetrician James Smallwood, the 'veil' is a piece of membrane which sometimes envelops the infants head at birth referred to as a 'caul' in medical terminology.
When cars got more common, Susie remembers stepping out of a car to go deliver a baby and sinking waist deep in snow.
But weather never stopped her from helping those who needed her. Lawrence was obviously behind her all the way, for when she was away delivering someone else's child, he kept their 11 children at home.
Susie said she was lucky she never delivered a baby so small it had to be incubated. Back in those days, the incubator consisted of a basket filled with wool to warm the child, said Susie. Her babies were always five pounds or larger and the largest she can recall today was 12 pounds, one of her daughters' children.
The Morgan twins (Harold and Carroll) stick out in Susie's mind even today because she had to fight so hard and long to keep the babies breathing. Luckily she had some help that day. While she breathed life into one baby she said the other one would stop breathing. She'd hand the breathing child to her helper while she breathed life back into the other one. For more than half an hour Susie continued to breathe into the infants until they began to breathe on their own, putting them in warm water to help stimulate them.
'Their mother tells 'em even today they'd better be good to me because I saved their lives,' said Susie with a laugh.
Susie helped out area doctors like Doc Wilkes, Big Doc Nichols, and Little Doc Nichols. She said often Doc Wilkes would stay till she could get there then leave mother and baby in her capable hands. Susie recalls the good doctor telling his patients, 'I know Mrs. McMahan can do as good as I can,' he'd say. And then he would leave.
When trials arose during a birth Susie had to use her instincts to save lives. After walking four miles out into the mountains Susie thought a baby was not going to get born because it was crossways. She got some help and held the mother up on her head so she could turn the baby. The baby was born safe and sound.
Often the families slept on bed ticks made out of toe sacks and stuffed with cornshucks. If the baby was born before she arrived, she often had to fish the infant out of the cornshucks.
Susie had all her children at home, most delivered by other midwives. When a doctor was available, she would use him.
As a midwife, probably some of Susie's most proud births were her own grandchildren many of which she helped to bring into the world. Today Susie has 123 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
Susie retired as a midwife in 1966 when she said women could more easily get to doctors and hospitals and she was so longer needed as desperately as she had once been.
'I thought I'd done my duty,' she said. And no one could argue with that statement! Susie said she was just thankful she had had the health and the ability to help so many mothers and babies. And she said they don't forget her. Many come up to her today and say, 'you delivered me.'
Susie's husband is dead now (he died on their daughter Mattie's birthday seven years ago) and four of her children are gone also. She is the last member of the Floyd Cook family still alive. At 84 Susie still gets around just fine using a walking stick for safety. She walks across the road to get her mail and takes her pet dog along for the walk. I have no doubt Susie could still supervise a birth if necessary, perhaps leaving the strenuous part to someone else. But after 2,000 successful delvieries, Susie has earned her retirement and the respect of a lot of families in Jackson county.
SOURCE: Sylva Herald article, written in 1985.
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John M. Cook, Jr.