Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 07/Izzelly Haines

Overview
Izzelly Haines was interviewed for the Federal Writers’ Project by Veronica E. Huss in October, 1938. Haines was a midwife born in Long Island, Bahamas that migrated to Riviera, Florida around 1918.

Early Life
Izzelly Haines was born in the Bahamas, born as Izzelly Pinder before she was married. Her mother was Bahamian and her father was a white man. Izzelly was a tall woman with Anglo-Saxon appearance, taking after her father. However, she was very tan and has dark colored hair which derives from her mother. She was closer to her father’s family than her mother’s, especially with her aunt. Izzely’s aunt was a doctor and owned a store in the Bahamas. Her aunt was a very impactful woman as she was credited as someone who raised her and the prime reason Izzelly decided to become a Midwife.

Being a midwife was a huge part of who Haines was. She started at the tender age of 17 and assisted many people over the years, including her daughter. Haines learned from the combination of her aunt's teachings as well as the medical books she read. In the Bahamas there weren't a lot of medical officials and they relied heavily on midwives, making her job important.

Later Life
Around 1918 Haines and her family migrated to Florida from the Bahamas. Haines settled in a small cottage in Riviera, Florida with her daughter, son-in-law, and her grandchildren. None of them had proper citizenship except her grandchildren, who was born in the United States.

She continued her work as a Midwife in Riviera, a community that heavily relied on conch fishing for income. Conch fishing was a small industry that made money off of selling conchs, however it was a dangerous job. It was common for mishaps to happen whether that be problems with the boat, weather, or the amount of fish that they were able to catch and when fishing there would often be storms and rough water. Her son-in-law was a fisherman and due to his unstable job it led the household to rely on Haines income, though it wasn’t much. Similar to the Bahamas, people were poor and couldn’t afford to pay a high price for her service. However, that didn’t matter to Haines as what was important was making sure that her patient was well taken care of.

How Izzelly died is unknown.

Midwives
A person, usually a woman, that assists in childbirth.

In the Caribbean
Midwives play a vital role in the Caribbean. There is a lack of professional medical personnel increasing the reliance of those that provide maternal and child services. According to a journal article “The usual overall proportions of those providing maternal and child health services are on the order of eight nursing personnel to one physician per 10,000 population” causing stress on those that are midwives. Majority of midwives do not have any professional training, it’s a trade that is passed from one to another.

Some responsibilities that they hold are being on a 24-hour. There are often a lot of cases of midwives being called for emergency deliveries. Midwives in the Caribbean also play a role as a nurse and tend those that are injured by farm machinery. They also administer injections to help prevent infections.

Overall, Midwives in the Caribbean is a trusted member in their community and provides care when there is a lack of professional personnel.

In the United States
The history of midwives in the black community go far back to days before slavery. Though as slavery began, African midwives help serve both African women as well as white women. As time goes on there is a progression of white Americans taking over this profession. Black midwives were being infringed on due to white people bringing up white midwives and denouncing black midwives. Soon the profession of midwives were becoming bleak as white male physicians started to replace the role of a midwife. Laws were being implemented to help further terminate this occupation. Some states started to make it illegal for lay midwives to continue their practice. Alongside this, the ideology that midwives could not provide services that male physicians had became prevalent in society making it harder for women to practice.

The black midwives were important because they paid attention to what those in their community needed. According to the CDC “Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women”. Majority of these deaths are preventable and can be caused by the unconscious bias against black women and dismissing their needs. Those that primarily paid attention to those needs were midwives in the black community and as those that no longer practice increase so does the black maternal mortality rate.

Immigrating to the United States from the Caribbean
Migration to the United States from the Caribbean can be from a multitude of different reasons. There were many social issues that occurred, for instance British Caribbean had problems concerning the decline of the sugar industry leading to a reduction of workers. Other issues like malnutrition, starvation, and the oppressive rule of colonial rule helped lead to the mass migration out of the Caribbean.

Between 1899 and 1932, 108,000 people migrated to the U.S. from the entire Caribbean region. South Florida became a popular location for migrants to move to, especially those from the Bahamas and Cuba. Miami was a hub for those from the Caribbean and Latin America. In 1920, Bahamians made up 52% of the black population and 16.3% of the city’s population. With this certain industries started becoming more popular in Florida, industries like: pineapple farming, fishing, cigar development and shipbuilding.