Birthdate: on 28 NOV 1878
Birthplace: Franklin, Macon, North Carolina, USA
Spouse(s): Joseph Elexander STEWART (On 6 JUN 1896; Macon, North Carolina, USA)
Deathdate: on 28 OCT 1986 (in Franklin, Macon, North Carolina, USA)
“I can’t just sit here, I got to be doing something.”
Minnie Carrie Ann McDonnell Stewart (The Franklin Press, 1977)
What can I say about Grandma Carrie? I never met her, but there is plentiful documentation available where she has provided accounts of her thoughts and experiences. She lived to be 107 years old, exactly one month short of her 108th birthday. Due to her long life, she has been interviewed by several groups and individuals. When I first began researching my family tree, she was my consistent focal point. To this day, I reference her interviews when I need to reorient myself. I always find something new in her words and it is a remarkable feeling to find information from records that verify or expound on what she says.
Growing Up in Franklin
She appears in Foxfire 5: Ironmaking, Blacksmithing, Flintlock Rifles, Bear Hunting, and Other Affairs of Plain Living (Foxfire Series) (Foxfire Fund Inc, 1979), Foxfire 9 (Foxfire Fund Inc, 1986), Hope and Dignity, Older Black Women of the South (Emily Herring Wilson, 1983), and several newspaper articles in The Franklin Press. In each of these interviews, she provides a snapshot not only of her own life, but she also provides glimpses into the lives of others who were close to her, including her parents, her husband, Joseph Elexander Stewart, her children, and more generally, her community.
She grew up on a farm in Franklin, North Carolina, living with her parents and grandmother, Martha Stewart, for at least the early years of her life. She was the oldest of ten children. During her childhood, she learned the ways of sewing and farm work. She grew up hoeing corn and sowing clay peas. 1 Later in life, she used her sewing skills to create quilts for friends and family. Her parents often gave her and her siblings books to read.
Carrie was educated at St. Cyprian’s Mission and School for African Americans, which opened four years after she was born. The school was affiliated with St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church. The school’s first director, Reverend James T. Kennedy, was her schoolteacher and she remembered him as being almost frustratingly strict. Nonetheless, she attributed her manners and “good sense” to him, learning arithmetic and spelling under his tutelage. She remembered him fondly, saying “You didn’t pass anything halfway with him.” 2
She attended school until she married Joseph Elexander Stewart at the age of 18. They were married at Carrie’s parents’ home and the ceremony was officiated by Reverend John A. Caliver. After she had children, she moved her church membership from the Zion Methodist church to St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church.
By 1900, Carrie and her husband, Joe, rented a farm in Franklin near her parents, grandmother, and siblings. Within their first four years of marriage, Carrie and Joe had had three children of their own– Ella, James Lee “Grady”, and an infant boy who died shortly after birth. All of her children were born at home, most of them being born with the aid of a midwife, often times, her own grandmother, Martha. 3
Working as a Midwife
While in her 30s, Carrie began taking midwifery classes in Franklin, learning the trade from a Dr. McCoy. She received her “Midwife Permit Grade A” from the North Carolina State Board of Health in 1947 and she kept a little black notebook of all of the babies that she delivered. Folks who knew her during that time remember her carrying her midwife’s apron and obstetric instruments as she traveled down Macon County roads. She dealt with “contrary” mothers in and would tell them, “I shall not touch you until you get to where you can abide by what I tell you.” She practiced midwifery until Joe passed away.
Her husband, Joe, died of myocarditis in 1951. He was buried at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Franklin. At the time of his death, the family was facing hard financial times and they could only afford a child headstone for him. To ensure that he was not alone in death, the immediate family members who were buried at St. Cyprian’s committed to having child headstones when they passed as well.
In her later years, Carrie spent her time sewing, quilting, working in her vegetable garden, and attending dinners that were sponsored by the Macon County senior citizens’ groups. In FoxFire 5, she prides herself on not needing “the aid of a walking cane.” In 1983, she shared her home with her daughter, Gertrude Conley.
Carrie passed away on October 31, 1986 of renal failure and is buried in St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church cemetery in Franklin, North Carolina. Her descendants remember her as being a product of her time. One of her grandsons today remembers her subscribing to the philosophy that “children should be seen and not heard.” She considered religion to be her most important possession. 4