A granddaughter passes on the legacy of 'Granny Hayden,' a midwife born into slavery
"If somebody needed help — Granny was going. Black and whites alike, it made no difference to her," Mary Othella Burnette says of her late grandmother, a second-generation midwife in Black Appalachia.
by Jo Corona
Feb 18, 2022
2 minutes
Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden was born into slavery on a plantation in Black Mountain, N.C.
By the age of 7, Hayden was freed after the Civil War ended in 1865, and went on to be a midwife in the Appalachian town. She learned to deliver and care for babies from her
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