In Mary's personal letters....

[LincolnToddFan]

(08-05-2014 06:12 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Regarding the "bending over me AT the birth..." I just wonder - they had only one room at the Globe Tavern, and Robert was born there, wasn't he? Could it be that A. L. was indeed in the room? (They led a quite modern family life anyway, living as a "core family" without further relatives, and with A. L. wheeling the kids etc.)

In Daniel Mark Epstein's "Portrait of a Marriage" he says that one of the women who attended and helped Mary during her confinement with Robert at the Globe was the woman who ran the boardinghouse. Then for several weeks after the birth she would come and bathe the infant and help out until Mary was back on her feet and able to do these things for herself.

Also, even though the Lincolns lived in one room at the Globe, there was a downstairs dining room where they took their meals and there was a parlor. I think it's likely that AL stayed downstairs during the birth, and like most men of that era was invited in to see his wife and their newborn after both had been cleaned up and situated.

Like many others have written, I find it very strange that Mary did not deliver her baby in her sister Elizabeth's large, comfortable home where she would have had more privacy during the birth. All the other guests at the boarding house could hear her agony during labor, for such a proud Southern lady that must have been humiliating. I know that there was strain between the two sisters on account of Mary's insistence on marrying AL so quickly, but still!

Laurie,

Dr William Wallace, husband of Mary's sister Frances, delivered Willie. And as has been quoted in Mary's letters there were two doctors present when Tad was born, leading credence to the belief that it was a rough confinement. BTW, that's a great point about a possible uterine prolapse. Poor Mary.

I am not sure about a midwife or doctor for Robert or Edward. But even though AL was not wealthy, he made enough $$ to be able to afford a midwife early in the marriage. I cannot see him trusting his young bride to the mercies of neighbors and the landlady.