MOTHER OF SOUTH MISSISSIPPI
It is said that every middle-aged man and woman within a 300 square mile section of South Mississippi came into the world under the gentle ministrations of Aunt Prudie Ladner, unsung heroine of the backwoods, whose life of great service reads like classic pioneer fiction.
For over 60 years Aunt Prudie, a small and twinkling blonde, was a redoubtable buffer standing between pain and the farmers of the countryside around Lumberton.
She was more than a midwife, was Aunt Prudie; she was a doctor, as well versed in things medical as many qualified physicians, although she placed her greatest trust in herbs and roots which, after all, were often the same medicinals as those handed out by the physician in a different form and disguised with a Latin name. As courageous a human as ever loved the red clay hills, Aunt Prudie often braved the night alone on horseback, swimming flood-swollen streams, slipping and sloshing through bottomless gumbo, to reach the bedside of an expectant mother or dangerously ill child.
In all, Aunt Prudie during her 65 years of practice, delivered 2,914 babies and nursed back to health unnumbered thousands in a territory which included parts of five counties; Lamar, Pearl River, Forrest, Marion and Stone.
Prudence Smith Ladner was born in 1852 in Smith County, Mississippi, and was taken when a child to Mobile, Alabama. She returned to Mississippi as the 16 year old bride of P.A. Ladner, and settled with him near the town of Lumberton. Prudie, young as she was then, was an expert midwife and she entered into practice. As there was no "diploma" doctor within 50 miles, she soon was called upon to treat illness' such as malaria, boils, dysentery, tonsillitis, and the mysterious flues and brain fevers of the day.
Prudie--not yet "Aunt" Prudie - took to reading "doctor" books and experimenting with ancient folk remedies. As the years went by, she tried and proved to her satisfaction many a crude but effective treatment, using the natural materials that grew in the woods and fields about her.
For a kidney, she brewed a tea of "four corners of the earth", a grass. Boils were brought to a head with tar salve; malaria was attacked with a tea brewed from the black snake root. Fever grass root was an admirable, if violent, purgative. Tonsillitis called for a gargle of persimmon bark, red oak bark and salt. Dysentery disappeared after a dose of tea made from red oak bark and blackberry root.
Aunt Prudie regarded herself as a mere instrument of the Lord. She coveted no secrets, was willing to teach her skills to anyone who sought to learn. Her energy was unlimited. Besides ranging as doctor throughout the countyside, she had time to tend the farm and give birth to nine children of her own.
Mr. Ladner, her husband, is said to have looked upon his wife with awe, but he was not completely overshadowed by the strenuous woman he married. At his home he set up a school, the only one within miles. Among his pupils was young Theodore Bilbo, future senator, whose youthful ailments were soothed by the wife of his schoolmaster. When public education spread to the piney woods, Mr. Ladner for many years was supervisor of a Pearl River county district.
Legends were often spun around Aunt Prudie while she was still a young woman. Not legend but fact, however, is the story still told about the night her horse slipped in a storm and fell on Aunt Prudie, breaking her foot, instead of returning home for help, she continued on to her destination, was carried from her horse into a house where she delivered a baby; then was carried back to her horse which she rode home.
"Aunt Prudie was sure the mother of this country," remarked one old timer, himself delivered by her. "She was a lot more'n jest a midwife. She gave us a lot of advice on everythin' she made us believe in the power of prayer. If we couldn't pay her, she treated us anyways."
And Prudie was also the jolliest of citizen of the hills, a lively, bubbling person whose laughter and capering were the making of many an otherwise routine shindig.
Mr. Ladner died in 1916, and Aunt Prudie took over the entire management of her bulging household. As the years passed and grandchildren came, she grew stout and was no longer able to make the tortuous trips across country astride a horse. But until she was 80 years old she was always eager to do battle with fear and pain. Aunt Prudie died in August, 1945, at the age of 93. She left seven surviving children and 35 grandchildren - her family can not agree on how many great-grandchildren. She left a glowing memory in the hearts of the thousands she aided in her six decades of doctoring.
RESOURCE: The Times-Picayune New Orleans States Magazine Lumberton Heritage 11, compiled by H. Mason Sistrunk.
It is said that every middle-aged man and woman within a 300 square mile section of South Mississippi came into the world under the gentle ministrations of Aunt Prudie Ladner, unsung heroine of the backwoods, whose life of great service reads like classic pioneer fiction.
For over 60 years Aunt Prudie, a small and twinkling blonde, was a redoubtable buffer standing between pain and the farmers of the countryside around Lumberton.
She was more than a midwife, was Aunt Prudie; she was a doctor, as well versed in things medical as many qualified physicians, although she placed her greatest trust in herbs and roots which, after all, were often the same medicinals as those handed out by the physician in a different form and disguised with a Latin name. As courageous a human as ever loved the red clay hills, Aunt Prudie often braved the night alone on horseback, swimming flood-swollen streams, slipping and sloshing through bottomless gumbo, to reach the bedside of an expectant mother or dangerously ill child.
In all, Aunt Prudie during her 65 years of practice, delivered 2,914 babies and nursed back to health unnumbered thousands in a territory which included parts of five counties; Lamar, Pearl River, Forrest, Marion and Stone.
Prudence Smith Ladner was born in 1852 in Smith County, Mississippi, and was taken when a child to Mobile, Alabama. She returned to Mississippi as the 16 year old bride of P.A. Ladner, and settled with him near the town of Lumberton. Prudie, young as she was then, was an expert midwife and she entered into practice. As there was no "diploma" doctor within 50 miles, she soon was called upon to treat illness' such as malaria, boils, dysentery, tonsillitis, and the mysterious flues and brain fevers of the day.
Prudie--not yet "Aunt" Prudie - took to reading "doctor" books and experimenting with ancient folk remedies. As the years went by, she tried and proved to her satisfaction many a crude but effective treatment, using the natural materials that grew in the woods and fields about her.
For a kidney, she brewed a tea of "four corners of the earth", a grass. Boils were brought to a head with tar salve; malaria was attacked with a tea brewed from the black snake root. Fever grass root was an admirable, if violent, purgative. Tonsillitis called for a gargle of persimmon bark, red oak bark and salt. Dysentery disappeared after a dose of tea made from red oak bark and blackberry root.
Aunt Prudie regarded herself as a mere instrument of the Lord. She coveted no secrets, was willing to teach her skills to anyone who sought to learn. Her energy was unlimited. Besides ranging as doctor throughout the countyside, she had time to tend the farm and give birth to nine children of her own.
Mr. Ladner, her husband, is said to have looked upon his wife with awe, but he was not completely overshadowed by the strenuous woman he married. At his home he set up a school, the only one within miles. Among his pupils was young Theodore Bilbo, future senator, whose youthful ailments were soothed by the wife of his schoolmaster. When public education spread to the piney woods, Mr. Ladner for many years was supervisor of a Pearl River county district.
Legends were often spun around Aunt Prudie while she was still a young woman. Not legend but fact, however, is the story still told about the night her horse slipped in a storm and fell on Aunt Prudie, breaking her foot, instead of returning home for help, she continued on to her destination, was carried from her horse into a house where she delivered a baby; then was carried back to her horse which she rode home.
"Aunt Prudie was sure the mother of this country," remarked one old timer, himself delivered by her. "She was a lot more'n jest a midwife. She gave us a lot of advice on everythin' she made us believe in the power of prayer. If we couldn't pay her, she treated us anyways."
And Prudie was also the jolliest of citizen of the hills, a lively, bubbling person whose laughter and capering were the making of many an otherwise routine shindig.
Mr. Ladner died in 1916, and Aunt Prudie took over the entire management of her bulging household. As the years passed and grandchildren came, she grew stout and was no longer able to make the tortuous trips across country astride a horse. But until she was 80 years old she was always eager to do battle with fear and pain. Aunt Prudie died in August, 1945, at the age of 93. She left seven surviving children and 35 grandchildren - her family can not agree on how many great-grandchildren. She left a glowing memory in the hearts of the thousands she aided in her six decades of doctoring.
RESOURCE: The Times-Picayune New Orleans States Magazine Lumberton Heritage 11, compiled by H. Mason Sistrunk.
MOTHER OF SOUTH MISSISSIPPI
It is said that every middle-aged man and woman within a 300 square mile section of South Mississippi came into the world under the gentle ministrations of Aunt Prudie Ladner, unsung heroine of the backwoods, whose life of great service reads like classic pioneer fiction.
For over 60 years Aunt Prudie, a small and twinkling blonde, was a redoubtable buffer standing between pain and the farmers of the countryside around Lumberton.
She was more than a midwife, was Aunt Prudie; she was a doctor, as well versed in things medical as many qualified physicians, although she placed her greatest trust in herbs and roots which, after all, were often the same medicinals as those handed out by the physician in a different form and disguised with a Latin name. As courageous a human as ever loved the red clay hills, Aunt Prudie often braved the night alone on horseback, swimming flood-swollen streams, slipping and sloshing through bottomless gumbo, to reach the bedside of an expectant mother or dangerously ill child.
In all, Aunt Prudie during her 65 years of practice, delivered 2,914 babies and nursed back to health unnumbered thousands in a territory which included parts of five counties; Lamar, Pearl River, Forrest, Marion and Stone.
Prudence Smith Ladner was born in 1852 in Smith County, Mississippi, and was taken when a child to Mobile, Alabama. She returned to Mississippi as the 16 year old bride of P.A. Ladner, and settled with him near the town of Lumberton. Prudie, young as she was then, was an expert midwife and she entered into practice. As there was no "diploma" doctor within 50 miles, she soon was called upon to treat illness' such as malaria, boils, dysentery, tonsillitis, and the mysterious flues and brain fevers of the day.
Prudie--not yet "Aunt" Prudie - took to reading "doctor" books and experimenting with ancient folk remedies. As the years went by, she tried and proved to her satisfaction many a crude but effective treatment, using the natural materials that grew in the woods and fields about her.
For a kidney, she brewed a tea of "four corners of the earth", a grass. Boils were brought to a head with tar salve; malaria was attacked with a tea brewed from the black snake root. Fever grass root was an admirable, if violent, purgative. Tonsillitis called for a gargle of persimmon bark, red oak bark and salt. Dysentery disappeared after a dose of tea made from red oak bark and blackberry root.
Aunt Prudie regarded herself as a mere instrument of the Lord. She coveted no secrets, was willing to teach her skills to anyone who sought to learn. Her energy was unlimited. Besides ranging as doctor throughout the countyside, she had time to tend the farm and give birth to nine children of her own.
Mr. Ladner, her husband, is said to have looked upon his wife with awe, but he was not completely overshadowed by the strenuous woman he married. At his home he set up a school, the only one within miles. Among his pupils was young Theodore Bilbo, future senator, whose youthful ailments were soothed by the wife of his schoolmaster. When public education spread to the piney woods, Mr. Ladner for many years was supervisor of a Pearl River county district.
Legends were often spun around Aunt Prudie while she was still a young woman. Not legend but fact, however, is the story still told about the night her horse slipped in a storm and fell on Aunt Prudie, breaking her foot, instead of returning home for help, she continued on to her destination, was carried from her horse into a house where she delivered a baby; then was carried back to her horse which she rode home.
"Aunt Prudie was sure the mother of this country," remarked one old timer, himself delivered by her. "She was a lot more'n jest a midwife. She gave us a lot of advice on everythin' she made us believe in the power of prayer. If we couldn't pay her, she treated us anyways."
And Prudie was also the jolliest of citizen of the hills, a lively, bubbling person whose laughter and capering were the making of many an otherwise routine shindig.
Mr. Ladner died in 1916, and Aunt Prudie took over the entire management of her bulging household. As the years passed and grandchildren came, she grew stout and was no longer able to make the tortuous trips across country astride a horse. But until she was 80 years old she was always eager to do battle with fear and pain. Aunt Prudie died in August, 1945, at the age of 93. She left seven surviving children and 35 grandchildren - her family can not agree on how many great-grandchildren. She left a glowing memory in the hearts of the thousands she aided in her six decades of doctoring.
RESOURCE: The Times-Picayune New Orleans States Magazine Lumberton Heritage 11, compiled by H. Mason Sistrunk.
It is said that every middle-aged man and woman within a 300 square mile section of South Mississippi came into the world under the gentle ministrations of Aunt Prudie Ladner, unsung heroine of the backwoods, whose life of great service reads like classic pioneer fiction.
For over 60 years Aunt Prudie, a small and twinkling blonde, was a redoubtable buffer standing between pain and the farmers of the countryside around Lumberton.
She was more than a midwife, was Aunt Prudie; she was a doctor, as well versed in things medical as many qualified physicians, although she placed her greatest trust in herbs and roots which, after all, were often the same medicinals as those handed out by the physician in a different form and disguised with a Latin name. As courageous a human as ever loved the red clay hills, Aunt Prudie often braved the night alone on horseback, swimming flood-swollen streams, slipping and sloshing through bottomless gumbo, to reach the bedside of an expectant mother or dangerously ill child.
In all, Aunt Prudie during her 65 years of practice, delivered 2,914 babies and nursed back to health unnumbered thousands in a territory which included parts of five counties; Lamar, Pearl River, Forrest, Marion and Stone.
Prudence Smith Ladner was born in 1852 in Smith County, Mississippi, and was taken when a child to Mobile, Alabama. She returned to Mississippi as the 16 year old bride of P.A. Ladner, and settled with him near the town of Lumberton. Prudie, young as she was then, was an expert midwife and she entered into practice. As there was no "diploma" doctor within 50 miles, she soon was called upon to treat illness' such as malaria, boils, dysentery, tonsillitis, and the mysterious flues and brain fevers of the day.
Prudie--not yet "Aunt" Prudie - took to reading "doctor" books and experimenting with ancient folk remedies. As the years went by, she tried and proved to her satisfaction many a crude but effective treatment, using the natural materials that grew in the woods and fields about her.
For a kidney, she brewed a tea of "four corners of the earth", a grass. Boils were brought to a head with tar salve; malaria was attacked with a tea brewed from the black snake root. Fever grass root was an admirable, if violent, purgative. Tonsillitis called for a gargle of persimmon bark, red oak bark and salt. Dysentery disappeared after a dose of tea made from red oak bark and blackberry root.
Aunt Prudie regarded herself as a mere instrument of the Lord. She coveted no secrets, was willing to teach her skills to anyone who sought to learn. Her energy was unlimited. Besides ranging as doctor throughout the countyside, she had time to tend the farm and give birth to nine children of her own.
Mr. Ladner, her husband, is said to have looked upon his wife with awe, but he was not completely overshadowed by the strenuous woman he married. At his home he set up a school, the only one within miles. Among his pupils was young Theodore Bilbo, future senator, whose youthful ailments were soothed by the wife of his schoolmaster. When public education spread to the piney woods, Mr. Ladner for many years was supervisor of a Pearl River county district.
Legends were often spun around Aunt Prudie while she was still a young woman. Not legend but fact, however, is the story still told about the night her horse slipped in a storm and fell on Aunt Prudie, breaking her foot, instead of returning home for help, she continued on to her destination, was carried from her horse into a house where she delivered a baby; then was carried back to her horse which she rode home.
"Aunt Prudie was sure the mother of this country," remarked one old timer, himself delivered by her. "She was a lot more'n jest a midwife. She gave us a lot of advice on everythin' she made us believe in the power of prayer. If we couldn't pay her, she treated us anyways."
And Prudie was also the jolliest of citizen of the hills, a lively, bubbling person whose laughter and capering were the making of many an otherwise routine shindig.
Mr. Ladner died in 1916, and Aunt Prudie took over the entire management of her bulging household. As the years passed and grandchildren came, she grew stout and was no longer able to make the tortuous trips across country astride a horse. But until she was 80 years old she was always eager to do battle with fear and pain. Aunt Prudie died in August, 1945, at the age of 93. She left seven surviving children and 35 grandchildren - her family can not agree on how many great-grandchildren. She left a glowing memory in the hearts of the thousands she aided in her six decades of doctoring.
RESOURCE: The Times-Picayune New Orleans States Magazine Lumberton Heritage 11, compiled by H. Mason Sistrunk.
Family Members
Spouse
Siblings
Half Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
