Biographies: Edna Bedgood Gunter, 1981, Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: May 13, 1981 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American

She Caught Babies

She was born Edna Bedgood on December 7, 1890 to Mr. and Mrs. William Bedgood
who lived on a farm in Grant Parish.  When she was seven months old, her
father was killed.  Eleven months later, her mother died.  She was passed
around from relative to relative.  No one ever saw to it that the child
learned to read or write.  In her words, "I grew up like a buzzard hatched on
a stump. Just the best way I could.  I lived with first one and then the
other."

She lived with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Madison Bryant, for quite a
while.  Mr. Bryant operated a gristmill in Winn Parish until around 1900.  The
mill was built straddling a creek which supplied the necessary water power. 
When the mill eventually ceased operation, it rotted away, but to this day,
the creek, a church and a little community still bear the name of Mill Creek.

Upon the deaths of her grandparents, the young girl and her brother were again
passed from home to home until at age fifteen, she met a young man named John
Gunter.  They courted for three years.  She remembered her grandmother's
advice for young ladies.  "When you are at a dance, never to onto the gallery
with a boy for a drink of water.  He might insult you.  Always take another
girl along.  Any girl who walked out with a boy, well, there wasn't nothing to
her."

John pressed her to marry him.  She refused and broke off the relationship. 
They met again six months later, made up their differences, and were married
within a month.  When she was fifteen, Edna Bedgood the homeless child, became
Mrs. Edna Gunter, wife, mother of her own family and eventually the most
prominent midwife in the Goldonna area.

All her life, Mrs. Edna waited on sick people.  "It was just a gift from the
good Lord.  It just came natural, doctoring folks.  I would wait on and cook
for the sick, clean up their house for them.  I never charged nothing for it. 
One man paid one time, but that was all.  I never charged.  Some folks do, but
that ain't right.  It ain't according to the Scriptures."

Even though she couldn't read and had no formal education, Miss Edna came to
be depended upon by the families of the sick.  Then when she was in her
twenties, a man came to her for help.  His wife was having a baby and there
was no one else available.  Without a word of argument, he unhitched the
horses so she could hurry to the woman's side.

She said, "I began to get nervous and I prayed, 'Now Lord, you've got to help
me cause you know I don't know nothing.'  The child was born and the mother
was fine.  That was when I started catching (delivering) babies.  I never lost
a mother.  There's younguns that I caught that's married and got children and
grandchildren of their own now.  I don't know how many babies there was.  I
could recall fifteen there a while back.  I know there was more but I can't
remember."

As time went on, Edna and John had five children of their own, including a set
of Siamese twins that were born prematurely and died.  Even when a doctor was
available, some women felt better knowing Miss Edna was there.  One mother
hemorrhaged badly.  Miss Edna observed the doctor's procedure closely and was
able to treat excessive bleeding thereafter by herself.  Eventually one doctor
gave her a surgical needle and thread and taught her how to stitch
lacerations.

When asked if she had any special procedure in "catching" babies, she replied,
"I would examine the woman to see how far gone she was.  If she was dilated as
big as a quarter, I knew it wouldn't be too long.  The beds back then sagged
so bad, it made it harder on the mother.  So I usually put the mattresses on
the floor.  If the woman's miseries were slowing down, you could give quinine
or black pepper tea to make the pains harder.  You know, we didn't have much
medicine back then.  We just used what we had."

From catching the newborns, it was a natural progression to doctoring sick
babies.  "One newborn was purple when they came after me.  I didn't think it
would live.  But the daddy had some water hot.  I put the baby into a dishpan
of warm water and rubbed it and rubbed it all over.  Then I began to slap it,
so I put it back into the water and began to rub it again.  It lived, but I
sure didn't think it would."

Medicines for a sick baby were usually onion tea, wintergreen tablets, calomel
or castor oil.  Sometimes mothers and their sick babies just moved in with
Miss Edna until the babies recovered.

John died and Miss Edna was alone again, but even in her old age she continued
to help the sick.

"The Lord's helped me through.  I wouldn't have been here if He hadn't.  I
think about it sometimes, how good He's been to me and I just get so happy I
can feel His presence going through me.  I've shouted here by myself many a
time.

Mrs. Edna Bedgood Gunter died on October 18, 1980 and by so doing ended a
lifetime of depending on her Lord, doctoring sick folks, and catching babies.