Oral History Interview with Stella Petrey

SANDY CANADA: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

STELLA PETREY: I'm Stella Petrey, I raised eight kids, we used a wooden stove to cook our meals on, carried water from a spring about a mile away.

SANDY CANADA: When was your first child born?

STELLA PETREY: 1948.

SANDY CANADA: Did you grow up around in here?

STELLA PETREY: I [was] born and raised in Whitley County.

SANDY CANADA: How long have you lived right here?

STELLA PETREY: 55 years.

SANDY CANADA: How old was [were] you when you had your first baby?

STELLA PETREY: Sixteen?

SANDY CANADA: How many children do you have?

STELLA PETREY: Eight.

SANDY CANADA: What was it like back then to have a baby?

STELLA PETREY: Rough going, we couldn’t afford doctors or hospitals, mostly had--they called them midwives, and it was kindly [kind of] rough back then.

SANDY CANADA: After you had your baby, did you have to lay in bed for a certain [period of] time?

STELLA PETREY: We usually laid in bed for usually six to eight days after they were born, most of the time, my mother would come in and help me.

SANDY CANADA: Was there ever a time when she couldn't come and help you?

STELLA PETREY: Yeah, there were lots of times, we'd get by best we could, my husband, he would help me.

SANDY CANADA: What did you feed your baby?

STELLA PETREY: I breastfed her.

SANDY CANADA: How did you wean her?

STELLA PETRY: I put her on a cup.

SANDY CANADA: How old was she?

STELLA PETREY: She was eight months old.

SANDY CANADA: When was it when she started cutting her teeth?

STELLA PETREY: She was about six months old.

SANDY CANADA: How many teeth did she have when you weaned her?

STELLA PETREY: Four.

SANDY CANADA: How did you know what to feed her?

STELLA PETREY: Mother’s instinct, I guess.

SANDY CANADA: When did you start feeding her solid foods?

STELLA PETREY: When she was about four months old.

SANDY CANADA: Did all of yous [you] eat together?

STELLA PETREY: Yes.

SANDY CANADA: Did you depend on a garden to get food from?

STELLA PETREY: Well, we depended on it a lot--a lot of can stuff things that I

could can, we depended on that.

SANDY CANADA: Were your babies ever sick?

STELLA PETREY: Yes, when they were teething, they were sick, and one had the yellow jaundice.

SANDY CANADA: How did you treat that?

STELLA PETREY: I don't really know how I treated her because I know I didn't take her to the doctor, I guess we gave them the catnip tea, some stuff we would go to the woods and get just things like that.

SANDY CANADA: Did they ever have colic?

STELLA PETREY: Yes.

SANDY CANADA: How did you treat it?

STELLA PETREY: I just gave them catnip tea.

SANDY CANADA: What about diaper rash?

STELLA PETREY: They never had diaper rash too bad.

SANDY CANADA: What about diarrhea?

STELLA PETREY: No, they never had diarrhea that bad.

SANDY CANADA: What about colds?

STELLA PETREY: Yes, they had colds, one had asthma real[ly] bad, they had colds in the

Wintertime.

SANDY CANADA: How did you treat asthma?

STELLA PETREY: Well, there ain’t [isn’t] much you can do for that, but they [there] was an old doctor in Williamsburg that I took her to.

SANDY CANADA: What about diphtheria?

STELLA PETREY: No.

SANDY CANADA: Infections?

STELLA PETREY: One had a[n] ear infection, I took her to the doctor for that.

SANDY CANADA: Did any of them ever fall and break any bones?

STELLA PETREY: No.

SANDY CANADA: Whooping Cough?

STELLA PETREY: Yes, they all had whooping cough when they were little.

SANDY CANADA: How did you treat it?

STELLA PETREY: They [ain’t] no [isn’t a] cure for whooping cough that I know of, I just let it run its course and that was it.

SANDY CANADA: What about typhoid fever?

STELLA PETREY: No.

SANDY CANADA: Tell me some of your favorite home remedies that you did use?

STELLA PETREY: Well, for colds I'd mix coil oil with lard, mix that up and rub that in the holler of the neck and on their back down by the bottom of their ribs.

SANDY CANADA: Did you ever have any babies to die [that died] as infants?

STELLA PETREY: No, I raised all eight of mine and they’re still healthy.

SANDY CANADA: Today, kids have all different kind[s] of toys, did your kids ever have any toys from [the] store or did you make them?

STELLA PETREY: Well, after they got up [to be] bigger, not when they were little, but after

they got up [to be] bigger why, my first children didn't have much to play with, but after they got up a little bigger, we could afford to buy them a doll or a little red wagon for the boys, just little things like that at Christmas time.

SANDY CANADA: What about your first baby, did anybody buy her a rattler or give her [one] or did you make her one?

STELLA PETREY: I don’t remember, I don’t think they ever had anything like that.

SANDY CANADA: Where there nursey rhymes or 1ullabyes or songs you sung to your kids?

STELLA PETREY: Yes.

SANDY CANADA: Could you tell me one?

STELLA PETREY: I would sing “Rock-a-Bye-Baby” in the tree top and then there was a little Christmas song I would tell the kids, every one of [them] the—before Christmas, I’d say, “hang up the babies’ stockings be sure and not forget this little daring Dessa (??) hasn’t seen Christmas yet.”

SANDY CANADA: Did you read to them?

STELLA PETREY: Yes, I’d read little story books to them.

SANDY CANADA: What age was [were] they when you started reading to them?

STELLA PETREY: When they were about a year old and on up.

SANDY CANADA: When there wasn’t anybody around and you had to go outside or something, how—what did you do with the baby?

STELLA PETREY: I would have to take them with me. If I was just going and then

straight back in, I would leave them in the house.

SANDY CANADA: What would you leave them in a crib or something?

STELLA PETREY: No, I didn't have no [any] cribs, I[‘d] just leave them sitting in [on] the floor.

SANDY CANADA: How did you dress your baby?

STELLA PETREY: Girls, I dressed them in little dresses and diapers, and I didn’t have these new diapers either, we had cloth diapers, we were lucky to get them.

SANDY CANADA: If you didn’t have cloth diapers, what you have--used?

STELLA PETREY: Whatever I could pick up, I guess.

SANDY CANADA: How did you feel about the way things are today, like all the toys and medicine, the diapers, playpens, and stuff like that?

STELLA PETREY: Well, I guess I’d like[d] to of had it back then when I was a--raising mine and could of [have] got[ten] it.

SANDY CANADA: How did you potty train your kid?

STELLA PETREY: I don’t know, they just learned to go.

SANDY CANADA: Did they sleep with you?

STELLA PETREY: They slept with me till they get [got] big enough to sleep by theirselves [themselves].

SANDY CANADA: Did they take naps during the day?

STELLA PETREY: No.

SANDY CANADA: Did you [use] a sugar tit?

STELLA PETREY: Yes, I couldn't nurse her because I didn't get no [any] milk till she was about three days old, she cried a lot and Mommy corned [came] and fixed her some, she knowed [knew] what it was.

SANDY CANADA: How did you fix it?

STELLA PETREY: I tied up some sugar in a little rag and stick [stuck] it down in a cup of water and let it get wet and I let her suck [on] it.

SANDY CANADA: Who helped you with your babies?

·STELLA PETREY: My mother.

SANDY CANADA: What role did your husband play?

STELLA PETREY: He'd watch them when I had to get out and do things, if he was here.