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Denis Mericer
8/1/72
Mary Adams

Agnes Lancak’s mother or grandmother was a midwife. How they were selected is unknown.

Mary had her children at home. The doctor came and attended. He’d sleep on a feather tick until the baby started to come. He was called at the first signs of labor. The husband was usually present at the birth of the babies. Doctors would not attend if a midwife came to assist at birth.

She never went for a checkup until the eighth month. Mary paid the doctor only ?? (c. 1936).

Mining families though the birth of children were reasonably pleasant “nice enough,” because children were blessings from God, especially if healthy.

If you had glasses (eye) “in the old days,” you were considered “fancy” and “putting on airs.”

Doctors were called only in emergency situations. There were no “preventative checkups” mostly because of finance.

All kids were raised in home. One kid helped raise the others. Breast feeding was the rule not the exception. Mary’s child was weaned at nine months. Rooms with sick children were sprayed with disinfectant, and the house were quarantined. Children with childhood diseases were confined to their rooms. Peroxide, alcohol, and iodine were the main remedies for cuts and abrasions.

When Mary grew up, she was bilingual. Her parents spoke the “old language”. Kids learned English mainly at school. At play mostly English was used. Mary was considered a “young American.” She was the first in her family to speak primarily English.

There were no organizations of kids’ groups in Mary’s day. All kids had complete run of the town, even “upper class town”.

Games included sleigh riding behind Margaret Maloney’s house, hide and seek, kick the can with four bases, nipsies, ring around the rosie, and softball. Mary played with the notches on the nipsies and hopscotch, too. The yards and streets were used for games, mostly the street. There was very little traffic, only hucksters and bakers.

Kids used to go to a small building near the wash shandy to buy candy that was usually sold to the men before and after work. Many times the working miners would buy their kids candy from there on payday.

Huckleberries were picked by kids for school clothes money. Buckets in back and front – 4 cents a quart.