Description of labor and delivery

1963 March 5 (a copy)

Dear, Willa, Martin, girls, mom and dad,

We were really happy to get your letter yesterday, Willa. So glad that Elaine is picking up and feeling OK again after her surgery. I’m glad that both mom and dad are feeling well too.

I was sick about a week not seriously and after I got enough stuff into me, I felt much better. I guess I would be wise to take added antimalarial when we are getting rundown as that seems to always be the time we get it. Malaria isn’t serious like it used to be. All we have to do is take some more anti-malaria, and we are quite well again. If we feel a headache coming on, we take another pill as the most frequent cause of headache is a malaria here.

We find especially since it has been so hot, we have to curb our activities considerably. Which is really frustrating. It starts getting hot as soon as it gets light. Al put the thermometer out in the sun the other day just to see how hot it actually was it would be depressing to know all the time. The mercury hit the top of the thermometer so fast it made our heads swim since it was 120°F. In the house during the day it is about 90°. It isn’t too uncomfortable if there is a breeze but practically smothers as if there isn’t. It isn’t bad in the evening as it cools off nicely and sleeping is no problem at all. So as long as we can sleep, we don’t feel too sorry for ourselves.

I think Al made a plea to Dr. Kuder, the head of the missions to see if he could get some food for the people in this area. We still don’t have enough rain– a couple of showers now and then nothing that would help the situation. We are going to have the church dedication in April but now there will be no food and they always kill a pig and have a feast of taro and greens and biscuits and tea. Then coconut for dessert -fresh from the tree. You drink them out first and then they cut it open and you can eat the meat. They pick green ones to- they have a little zip to them. The flesh is very soft. Paula and Tommy really love it. They appreciate the native food which always makes the people happy.

The parents have been able to bring some food in for 116 students, but they really are living on starvation diets. Our mango trees are producing this year for the first time they ever have, as it has been too wet for them. They grow on a huge tree. If you can use your imagination, they roughly resemble a peach that has just a little kerosene in it. They are very high in vitamin A. Paula and Tommy love them. We’ve been giving them to the school children.

The dormitory that burned down last term is slowly, but surely like everything in New Guinea, being built. They have to gather everything from the bush or jungle. Then scrape off the bark off the poles, shred other bark to weave the walls and slit bamboo to make the floor with. Then they have to gather the grass that is very wide and sew it to the poles. It is bent over the pole in the middle, and then they take a vine and poke holes through the grass, making long sticks all along the 5 foot pole. It takes hundreds of these to cover a roof of any size.

We’ve been trying not to get such a big establishment that the native people can’t run when the white man leaves. They will have to be able to maintain all the buildings we’ve built– by we, I mean all the missionaries.
Paula is really feeling her ginger today after being pretty well under the weather yesterday with diarrhea and vomiting. She laid around and didn’t feel much like playing or eating. But today she’s been so jolly and has been eating since she got up. She’s been ‘codering’ her book and wondering if we couldn’t go “wimming in our wimming soups”. She also has been playing with Abolie our hired man. She likes to go out and watch them work. He’s been leveling off a place to build a new girls house. She can set the table without any help. She figures out by where everyone sits as to how many plates to put on. She can’t count so that doesn’t mean anything to her. Sometimes she puts the fork on the wrong side sometimes but otherwise does real well. She hast to have a spoon for the jelly and for the sugar. If the girls forget it, she hops off her chair and gets it.

Tommy woke up this morning with the temperature of 105.4°. Guess whose mother went into super action. He was having diarrhea like Paula. He wanted a drink of milk so badly I gave him some, and naturally all came right back up. I bathed him, gave him some sips of water. Fortunately, I had some sulfa and strep combination, which is supposed to be good for diarrhea. So I started him on that and gave him some liquid aspirin that I brought from the States – by the way in a package maybe you could send some infant aspirin and some liquid aspirin. They don’t seem to have any here.

I’ve gotten Al off to Lae before I discovered what Tom’s temperature was otherwise, I think I would’ve gone with him. He just laid there so pathetically while I gave him a cold alcohol sponge bath. Paula had to be so helpful to keep getting milk and water for him. Fortunately, he was able to keep down the medicine and drank 2 cups of soup and two glasses of water and half a cup of milk bread. At noon his temperature was down to 102.6° he got up for a little while and had to find out where Phyllis was. He started around like a drunken sailor after stumbling. After a cold drink, he back to bed and took a long nap. His temperature tonight was 100° much to my relief. He still has diarrhea but he can control it to tell me when he has to go. He sat at the supper table and had a soft egg, milk and some potatoes smashed and milk. He eats surprisingly good for all he has been through.

Last week we really had another earthquake. Our stove pipe came tumbling down. The sewer pipe broke, and some of the fiber light in the kids room cracked. I open the front door to go out with the kids. Later we noticed the doorway got so out of whack that we couldn’t close the door again. Al was home this time so we got things straightened around before it really hit. It came mildly, and I grabbed the lamps and Al the radio and phonograph. It died down a little, so I thought it was going to be done. Then it came again harder than ever. The dishes came clattering out of the cupboard and I grabbed the kids as I yelled at Phyllis to get out of the house. I just made it through the door when it subsided. I had all of my glasses locked up in the little buffet so none of them got broken this time. Only one plastic plate. It cleared the shelving in the bathroom though chipping the sink slightly. That cabinet just doesn’t seem to be able to hold. I guess we can’t complain about the little damage here as in Libya, a town was lowered to rubble in just a few seconds.

Our bush dispensary is or was built like the school, or rather the dorm. It got so I was falling through the floor. So I said I wasn’t going down there until there was a new dispensary. After months of wrangling and delay, they did get the old one down and burned and the ground level to build a cement floor and build a permanent one that we can keep some of the uninvited guests out like the cockroaches and white ants. It is quite disgusting to have sterile instruments sitting in instrument server for in and when you come to use them, you find that the lid wasn’t quite tight enough as there are a few cockroaches and slight droppings from little lizards – geckos we call them. They run around the house all the time. It is a little startling when fluffing up a pillow or moving a chair, and one pops out into your hand or runs down my leg. They eat mosquitoes and cause no harm so we put up with them.

**Old dispensary at Malalo. circa 1962**

We’ve been trying to describe the medical work to you but can’t think just what I’ve told you and just what I haven’t said. The ward which we keep the patients that need to have medicines more than one day is a bush building like the house they live in. The bamboo floor has a space between each board to make cleaning easy. You can just sweep everything through the floor. Everything has to be wiped up and just let it run through the floor. If it is something sticky, they just pour some water over it rub a little with her foot -rags are hard to come by and then the floor is clean again. There are two tiny squares at each end of the building. This is where they build their fires. Sometimes have vines hanging from the rafters to tie their pots and pans over the fire but mostly they have wire mesh left from the army that they bend over the fire to put the pots on. Some of the food they roast in the fire. Like sweet potatoes, taro and corn. They have another vegetable something like the inside of a cob of corn that taste like the kohlrabi family. They boil all of their meat- making soup out of most of it. They don’t have grease to fry it in.

They bring their sleeping mats in and those that have pillows bring them – many more have pillows now than when we first arrived. They can make them out of cotton fiber like that grows on trees here – Kapoc trees. Those that have blankets bring them. The family comes with so that they can prepare the food and take care of all of the patients needs. Once when a baby was sick, we had 20 relatives sitting around in the dispensary. If they are real sick, or Glelamo, our nurse, or Kalang, our doctor boy has any questions about them. I look at them and tell them what to do, unless it is a minor surgery or artificial respiration or a snakebite.

OB would really get you. (Ina’s sister is also a nurse) They are all delivered in their homes except the ones I’ve been watching through their pregnancy that I think we have trouble. The houses have no windows, and since there are no chimneys the interiors, all smoky and dark looking so even in broad daylight, I have to take a flashlight. They always have a fire smoldering away. This way they don’t have to use so many matches. It is just a small open fire on a tin usually in the middle of the floor. So if I need any hot water, or the like they can get it for me right away. They have the women on a delivery table. Usually consisting of a dirty burlap bag near the wall. Then they have a rope for the lady to pull on. She can brace her feet against the wall. If our nurse is there, she usually gives them a partial prep. Otherwise, they aren’t even washed off. Someone assist the mother by doing some kind of calisthenics with their arms around her waist. I guess they are trying to push the baby out. These people are more progressive than some in the villages and other parts. There the mother has to go off into the bush unattended, and have the baby by herself. She’s contaminated during this time and anyone that touches her will be cursed. If she survives well and good, and if she doesn’t, she wasn’t fit to live. But the child is unwanted, she can see to it that it doesn’t live, then no one knows the difference.

They have absolutely no anesthesia or analgesic. They consider it real ugly if any woman makes any noise or hollers during delivery. They never call me in until it’s too late to give them anything. The only call me if there’s trouble. They don’t cut the cord until the placenta has been delivered and they cut it very long and don’t tie it. If the mother is torn, it is rare that she gets sewn up. I’ve tried to encourage them to massage the fundus to keep the bleeding at a minimum, and they seem to have caught onto this fairly well. They have the baby nurse as soon as one of the old women assisting has washed the baby in warm water. They wrap it in rags and settle it by the mother when the infant is hungry, the midwives passes it around to whoever has had a baby recently and has enough milk. They nurse their kids about two or three years or until they have another baby. The method of birth control is the husband has one room and the wives and kids have another. All of the cooking and eating is done in the wives room. After the children quit nursing, they don’t get any milk the rest of their lives. The relatives and older children help keep the garden until the wife is on her feet again and able to do this for herself, which is about two or three weeks. They pride themselves in being hail and hardy, and self-sufficient and having babies.

I surely would like to be able to have a place for them to have babies in. But until there would be enough room and enough personnel to make a beginning, it is best to leave them the way they are. As they become aware of the possibilities and demand better physical things, so that they are willing to support them, it is needless to try and give it to them too soon. That has been our experience. The more people are being educated the more they will realize the need and then this country may get moving.

Since there are no screens or lights in the dispensary, it is impossible to keep things sterile down there. I usually bring everyone up to our house to be operated on. I put papers all over our dining room table and lay them out, even if it is minor, so they won’t faint. We have plenty of Novacaine so things go quite well.

The chromic with atrolac needles in the glass tubes is real nice. I just break them in a sterile field, which is Tommy’s diapers put through the pressure cooker. I make 2 x 2 dressings out of rolls of gauze and put them in the pressure cooker and glass jars and make cotton balls and swabs too. I even got some gauze to make fluff out of it in the last order for the big, weeping sores. I have a catheter, a gastric tube, and gloves, and they could all be sterilized in the pressure cooker. I have two knives and blades, three curb clamps without teeth, and two thumb forceps that I have begged, borrowed or stolen. Oh yes, I do have a suture scissors I just came across.

The church in Stevens Point is sending some drapes for minor surgery, I hope they have included some wrappers too. Stuff to wrap things in are really hard to come by.

One little boy Tommy’s age had a gash about 2 inches on the back of his head. I shaved all around and put methlolate on it and do you know he didn’t so much as whimper. Most kids would’ve been climbing the walls. I don’t know if they had given him something or not.
Last week we were all planning to go to visit the people at the sawmill. Al needed to see about some schools in that area. A man came up, saying his daughter was having a hard time having a baby and would I go and look at her. Her vulva was so swollen. She was only seven months pregnant and had been in labor for 24 hours. She was dilated 7 cm, but the membranes were intact. I decided to send her to Lae as the baby wasn’t coming down into the pelvis, but kept hitting on the side of the pelvis bone. Two days later the people coming back from Lae said that she still hadn’t delivered. I was glad that we hadn’t let her labor into exhaustion here and that we had a boat to send her on.

The dispensary is 3/4 of the way up the hill so people have to carry those who can’t walk up this horrid hill for help. I’ve discussed having it at the beach, but the disadvantage of having to have everything done in the kitchen as far as sterilizing the needles and syringes, which we boil them every day, getting water from here and everything put back in its old location.
We treat, malaria, of course, leading everything else by quite a margin. Then dysentery, pneumonia, tropical ulcers. Every little wound gets easily infected. The climate is ideal for germ growth. It will start with a sore the size of a pinhead or a mosquito bite. The flies won’t leave them alone, and no one has any bandages of their own or any antiseptics of any kind that they can start to get an abscess underneath until they have a whole pocket of pus. It becomes very painful. If this opens and it drains, the pain goes away, but the sores keep getting worse. We have to clean out those smelly sores and put a powder in and binding them up. If they are really large, we give them penicillin.

Leprosy is present on the island, but we don’t have any of it in our area at least not that either Edna or I have seen. About the time of the War this is very prevalent. The government and mission did a real thorough canvassing of the whole civilized area and wiped it out except back in the mountains were white people still don’t dare to venture.

TB is a big headache here. I find it quite a bit of it, especially among the older people. We have a nice TB hospital at Finschhafen, which I think Emil might have helped build. It was an army hospital. Someday I hope to get pictures of Lae, Finschhafen, and Madang for him just so he can see how much they have changed. I really need to go through the mountain area where Al goes on a trip sometime and get all of those TB’s out of there. They never get any medical attention.

Fred and Al have talked one village into moving up a mountain closer to the coast so they can get their food to market and people to hospitals. They’ve started to clear ground, but it will be a long time before they really get moved. Most of the mountain people there’s no way to reach them, but by walking. The mountains are too steep to build airstrips on, so they are just out of touch with the rest of civilization. A private company tried to operate helicopters in there, but they cost so much to run that they soon had to be abandoned.

I’m sure you’re bored to death if you’ve made it this far, so I’ll just shut my little typewriter by telling you we really do enjoy the Readers Digest. Oh yes – I have been able to get some tin powdered milk for twins and for mothers that can’t nurse their babies. I encourage them to give them milk with a cup and a spoon since they don’t keep bottles and nipples clean enough. That was Edna‘s idea. And I don’t encourage diapers as they wouldn’t get changed often enough and skin disease is such a problem.

We love you all, maybe someday we’ll spiel off on another topic.

We have used our electric tape recorder, and are ordering some tapes of lectures from the states. If you could tape a sermon or talk someday at First Lutheran we really would appreciate it. It has three speed and big reels. Only problem is now the electric system is on the blink. If only Martin or dad could spend two weeks and get everything running all the same time. Poor Al tries and gets so disgusted because he can’t get them fixed properly and it takes him so long the 3/4 of his time is spent fixing things and there goes the mission work.

Still no rain, but maybe soon. We aren’t hard up for food, so don’t worry about us. Another thing is to put your mind at rest. The mission has enough money in an emergency sitting in a bank here in New Guinea to fly everyone out in a hurry. Should there be such an emergency so no one would be stranded for lack of funds.

Don’t work too hard all of you. Hope Willa on Martin will get reunited again soon. Living apart, except for weekends is so hard. God has been very good to us, and blessed in so many ways.
Tommy says so much now. As soon as he rolls out of bed, he starts to eat dinner or supper. He loves to wear Paula’s dresses and feels left out if he doesn’t have one too so occasionally, I put one on him too. He sticks his tummy out so far and has to show daddy his ‘des’. He picks up Paula’s dolly so tenderly by the arm and gives it a sling across the room or drags another by the hair – such a gentle papa. Paula is so good to her dolls. She hast to show them everything even pictures and gets her five dolly’s lined up to look. She assures Tommy that mommy will be right back if he cries when I go someplace like the dispensary. She needs to pray for her dolls and blanket before she goes to bed at night.

We love you all. Love Ina.

**Thatching a roof in one of the mountain villages where a landrover could access.**

This letter is mostly family news that was repeated in the last letter.

1963 March 12

Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Malalo Mission station Alvin and Louise Erickson, Box 1327, Glendive Montana, USA

Dear mom and dad Erickson,
A belated happy birthday to dad, and a happy birthday to your mom as Paula says happy to you birthday.

The last few mornings have been cool enough so we feel like working again. We have had a little rain so I think now the people can plant their gardens again. Many of our people have been having a hard time trying to find enough food to get by this dry season. It has been the dryest season they have had for many years.

Paula is such a little chatterbox. I don’t think she ever stops talking. She tries to mimic everything we say. We have to go through the whole list of who woke up when she gets to the breakfast table in the morning. “Daddy woke up, Tommy woke up, etc., including her dolls, blanket, dollies blanket”. I had taken one of her baby bottles out the other day as it had ounces measure, and all the Australian recipes call for ounces instead of teaspoons or tablespoons or cups, and Paula was wondering what it was, so she didn’t even remember how much it had meant to her before.

She plays so tenderly with her dolls. They all have to have their turn on the potty after her and Tommy in the morning. She always has a pillow for them and showing them anything exciting that is going on. Each of our babies have to have a look when we look at pictures.

We talk a lot about grandpa and grandma and show them your pictures, Paula talks about grandpa and grandma coming to her nice big house. I don’t know who tells her about the nice big house, but she is always making some comment on it. Paula loves to go “wimmin in her wimmin soup.”

Tommy says almost as much as Paula. When we sit down to the table he hollers “daddy come eat, daddy come eat.” He plays a game where he hides his spoon behind himself or under the tablecloth. Then he opens his big wide eyes so innocently and said ‘poon go? poon go?’. Then he will smile his mischievous smile and bring it out ‘here is poon’ and laughs at himself as he thinks he is clever. When he is in trouble he is always trying to charm himself out of a spanking. It is so hard to keep from laughing at him sometimes and he always seems to be in trouble.

He is always begging for food. He asked for one for ‘Pawa’ as soon as he gets a cookie for himself or some bread ‘bwed and jolly’. Before dawn he comes pittering and pattering out looking for some cereal and will eat three dishes before breakfast.
Phyllis1 has fit so well into our family. She is very quiet, but a nice person to have around. She is so thoughtful and the kids love her so much. She plays with them and reads to them. Tommy is such a little book hound. He always has a book tucked under his arm and as soon as he sees anybody sitting down, he is up on them with his book and wants us to go through the book telling him what everything is. He will sit for the longest time looking at National Geographic’s, or even just picking out the cars and trucks in a time magazine.
The kids are happy with the letter from Greg. Tom carried it around for a while they both are starting to enjoy coloring in their coloring books. We were so surprised not to be able to buy colors (crayons) here I guess they just use color pencils or something.

Al is now out on a trip to the mountain. I hope when he gets back after Easter, that Phyllis, the children and I will be able to go with him. We would be able to stay about two weeks. We fly in and then have only a five hour walk to a place where they have a house built for Bingsu ( a title the New Guineans in this area use for the white missionaries. )
Fred Scherle is back in the United States now as he had to have a major surgery on his back. He will be in a cast for six months and won’t be back here until September. They are living in Saint Paul in the same house they did when they were home on furlough in 1960.

A couple of weeks ago we had a pretty good earthquake. Our stove pipe fell down and the earthquake broke the sewer pipe under the bathroom stool. Fortunately I had all of our glasses in a locked buffet so they didn’t get broken this time. Our front door would not close as the frame was all out of kilter. One of our workers was able to pound it back into shape.

I’m feeling pretty good now. Still a little tired. I was sick about a week with general intestinal upset. Then when we get sick with something we usually get some malaria with it. With the antimalarial drugs this isn’t serious. We just take a few more pills and we ordinarily take every week, and we are better. Whenever we get headaches we take more anti-malaria pills, so that is the chief course for headaches.

I’ve been doing the Bible study in the ?? scope. I enjoy even if we don’t have others to study with. We just found out that the church in Alexandria is going to part sponsor us. What this means is if they will pay part of our salary, freeing the mission board to use the money now being spent on our salary to be used in other ways. We will have to send them pictures and tapes so they can get acquainted with their missionary. Almost the same time we were informed that a couple from Hanska, MN wanted to part sponsor us that means they too will pay some of our salary. It doesn’t cover the whole salary, but we are so pleased that they are interested. Thank you so much for your constant prayers and for your letters.

Our love to both Al, Ina and kids.

footnotes:

1 Phyllis Engebretsen. Teacher/Education. Bula girls School and Malalo elementary school. 1962-1979

2 Scherle Reverend Fred and Edna. Evangelism and social concerns. 1946 -1967. 1972 -1981. They were stationed at Malalo from 1946 to 1961. Then at Mumeng.

Several letters found from some locals…

From Korrine Okland