Uncovering the Bones – 100 Years of Stories

Uncovering the Bones – 100 Years of Stories

~ A returning home journey to the Beara Peninsula

One of the “things” I do in my professional life, is serve on the NH Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee.  It’s about as horrible as it sounds. Actually, it’s worse.  We review the deaths of women who have died during pregnancy or within a year after birth.  We collectively determine if the deaths were a result of, or related to pregnancy and birth, and then with the information we have (which can sometimes be scant) we make recommendations about what can be done to prevent such deaths in the future.  I am usually quite emotionally spent for two or three hours following the three-hour meetings.  Hearing and reading the gruesome details of accidental overdoses, suicides, homicides, and deaths from medical complications that often seem to be, at least in part, the result of a health care system that has failed a human, is a heart wrenching experience.

It is one of the times in my life, when I ask myself, is this where I am supposed to be?  Is this what I am supposed to be doing?  The answer that always comes is “if not you, who?”  Someone needs to do it, and as a person who has spent their whole life caring for infants, young children, and their parents (mostly mothers), in one capacity or another, I come to the conclusion that I need to be there.  I often bring a broader perspective, inquiry about the up-stream impact, and recommendations that focus on larger societal shifts.  I usually feel like my suggestions will not make a difference, at least not in my lifetime, but also, they need to be shared, said, explored.  And most importantly, the stories of the women need to be heard.  As I have listened to these stories over the past few years, I had no idea there was a maternal mortality story from my own family to unearth.

Yesterday, I met a man through a Beara genealogy Facebook group, Ken, who sent me some information I did not have.  I learned that my great-grandmother, Nora Shea, died only a month after she gave birth to her third child, in March 1920 in Manchester, NH.  Her infant, Mary Cecelia, died 5 months later, August 1920, over 100 years ago.  Until today, I did not even know that there was a child, Mary Cecelia.  I knew my grandfather had an older sister, Priscilla, who lived in Illinois, but I had never heard of another baby.  I have not found her death record yet, but death in the first year of life, and five months after the death of her mother, in 1920, was likely related to not having her mother or the right food to sustain her little body.  In 1920, the use of evaporated milk was just beginning as a food supplement when mother’s milk could not be used.  My family would have been among the poor and would not have had access to other forms of food, like paying for a wet nurse.  And then, I began to wonder if Nora’s death was related to childbirth.  It was about a month after the baby was born, so possibly.  The story I had about her death was that it was the result of the Spanish Flu.  Was there more to it?

I reached out to Ken again.  And got some more details.

The death record said, “cause of death – septic phlebitis, contributing cause – pneumonia, childbirth”.
So, she had an infection – a combination of the flu perhaps and a uterine infection?  Maybe a cesarean delivery, a resulting infection and secondary pneumonia?  There was no maternal morbidity or mortality review committee when Nora Shea died. What could have been done to prevent her death? Were dirty instruments used, inadequate handwashing or hygiene, poor nutrition?   Maternal mortality in 1920 was about 600, per 100,000 (comparably, 12 per 100,000 today – not great for world standards, but that’s for another time) and without penicillin (not discovered until 1928, and not used more widely until the 1940s) bacterial infection was likely to turn to sepsis, an inevitable death sentence.

Oddly, I just watched an episode of “Anne With An E” with Lauren, the night before I left for Ireland, in which a mother died of sepsis after getting an infection from cutting herself with a knife in the kitchen. She also had an infant.  Lauren was confused, “how can a person die from cutting themselves with a knife?”  she asked.  “Antibiotics are an amazing thing Lauren”, I responded, and they were not yet created in 1900.

I looked at the pdf again and the death record.  I imagined Nora, without her infant, sick, suffering, in pain, worried.  Two young children at home and then the baby. Or maybe she was at home. The questions swirled in my mind as the tears flowed from my face.  A few tears suddenly turned to sobbing as I found my body to be experiencing a familiar visceral response to grief that I wish I were not so familiar with.  A combination of wrenching abdominal and chest tightness and an internal collapse of sorts.  If I hadn’t been on the couch, the floor would have caught me.  The grief of these humans seemed to enter my body, with me as the vessel for their tears, their sorrow, the unspoken pain.  Or perhaps it was the story I had of what should have been that made me so woefully and incredibly sad.  Did Nora know she would die?  Who was with her?  Did she leave the home to have her baby, and never return? Or come home with her baby and then get sick?  What must have been my grandfather’s story of this event in his life? Had he blocked it out completely? Or just never shared it? Was he there when she died? She was 45 years old.  He was not even 4.

I will never have the answers to these questions.  But I do know that my grampy, Gene Sheehan was a most gentle, kind, caring and sweet man.  He was a primary caregiver of my siblings and me, as young children.  He cared for us, cooked for us, took us on walks, pushed us on the swings.  He wiped our bums.  He held our hands.  He also retired early and cared for my grandmother who had Multiple Sclerosis, was wheelchair bound and then later bed bound.  He never uttered a word of complaint or resentment.  He did the same thing every day for decades.  Did his mother’s untimely death help create this gentle soul?  Did he come in this way, or was it his Irish blood?  Probably a combination of all these factors.

I took some time to let the tears flow and read through the documents again.  My ancestor candle was burning on the alter I created.  A picture of Nora Shea and my dad as the backdrop.  I didn’t bring one of Grampy.  But his white hair, Celtic Sea blue eyes, pearly skin, handsome face, and gentle smile are etched into my memory like a stone carving.  I suddenly thought about La Loba, one of my favorite stories of a Wolf Women, who sets out every day to gather bones.  She brings them back to her cottage, one bone at a time, and lays them out on white clothes, just in front of the large window, much like the one I sit in front of as I write.  Day after day, year after year, she collects the bones on her walks, through the desert, or perhaps in the rolling green hills of Beara.  She knows just where to look for some of the bones, and for others, she discovers them quite unexpectedly.  Her favorite bones to collect are the wolf.  She has an incredibly special spot in her home for these bones, and each time she finds another wolf bone, she adds it to the skeleton she is building.  She sings over the bones every time she places one down, and she gives thanks to the bones for appearing to her.

As I uncover the bones of the story of my family, I can feel their presence.  I can understand the seeking of La Loba, the Wolf Woman, and how as she tenderly placed each bone, she became more and more connected to the process and to the skeleton she built.  When La Loba places the last bone, as the full moon glows into the window and onto the wolf skeleton, she sings her song.  The wolf bones begin to move together, and the ligaments, tendons, muscles, fat, skin and finally hair and features of the wolf are formed while she sings.  The wolf stands up, looks at the now old woman in the eyes, and jumps through the open window into the moonlight.  As the wolf runs across the field, the woman can see her stand, her silver hair flowing wildly behind her, her naked body shining in the moonlight.

All along, she has been uncovering herself, one bone at time.