Some middle-of-the-night thoughts about Laura’s birth day, which I didn’t get out of bed to blog about:
Did Pa ever tell stories about the day Mary/Laura/Carrie/Freddy/Grace was born? Laura tells us a bit about Carrie’s and Grace’s births in her unpublished writings, but it would be interesting to know about (especially) Laura’s birth. What time of day was she born? Was Ma in labor a long time? Was it an easy birth? Who was there? Did Pa have to rush out in the middle of a snowstorm to fetch Aunt Polly? Who was looking after two-year-old Mary during the birth?
This year on February 7, the high temperature in Pepin was in the zero digits, and when I looked at the weather report during the night, it was eleven below zero. Weird, but I never really thought about Laura being born firmly in the middle of winter before.
Surely in a cabin that was perhaps no bigger than my living room, there wasn’t all that much privacy while Laura was coming into the world. Was there a door to the bedroom? Was it open or closed? Was there a roaring fire and could you hear the wood crackle and pop from the big bed? Was it warm and comfortable in the bedroom or drafty and chilly?
Was there conscious sadness that Laura was a daughter instead of a son? There were already a lot of boy cousins in the Ingalls and Quiner households: Polly and Henry had two sons; Martha and Charles Carpenter had two; Aunt Nancy Quiner had two; Lydia had one; and James had one (or two — I’m not really sure if Samuel was born before Laura…). And Laura’s Cousin Peter was not quite 3 months old when she was born.
By the way, that photo from yesterday is of Cousin Peter.
