Ida Raulerson Gainey

Born in 1909, Ida Raulerson Gainey was raised in the backwoods of Baker County by her poor but honorable parents, Daniel and Laura Mizell Raulerson. She married Otus Gainey at age 15, but hardship continued as he earned $1.25 a week as a section laborer with the Southern Railway during the Depression years. In 1926, their only child, Mildred, was born. Ida was often called to help care for friends and neighbors until the doctor arrived to deliver their babies, and if the doctor did not arrive in time, she delivered the baby herself. She eventually became an official midwife, delivering countless babies, mostly from poor farm families, and recording their births long before the advent of Florida’s Official Vital Records. In a 1979 interview, she recalled a childhood of hunger, cold, little clothing, missed schooling, and work in the cotton patch, though she was grateful to have learned to read through the fifth grade. She also remembered the harsh conditions of her midwifery work, when women often had nothing for pain, babies were wrapped in old rags or worn-out clothing, homemade octagon soap and old twine were used, and poverty and neglect could be extreme. At the close of that interview, she sat at an upright piano and sang, “I have Jesus, now I have everything.” She died in 1992.

Macclenny, Florida · United States