Marie Jones Francis Collection

Marie Jones Francis Collection

Francis Collection

Midwives, African American

Midwives--Florida

Midwifery--United States

Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.)

Sanford (Fla.)

African Americans--Florida--Sanford

Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the life and work of Marie Jones Francis. Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," lived at 621 East Sixth Street in Sanford, Florida. Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," left behind a successful hotel and restaurant she owned in Sarasota in 1942 to return to Sanford and become a midwife. World War II caused a shortage in doctors and nurses, so Florida's Children's Bureau sent Francis to Florida A & M to acquire her practical nursing license in 1945. She specialized in premature babies and returned to Sanford to aid her mother, Carrie Jones, at Fernald-Laughton Memorial Hospital before they opened the ward in their home. "When her health starting failing," she recollects in a newspaper article, "I took over." Francis converted her house at 621 East Sixth Street to also serve as a maternity ward, where she delivered over 40,000 babies over her 32 year career. She became a midwife in the same vein as her mother, Carrie Jones, and together they ran the Jones-Francis Maternity Hall in Georgetown.

Francis served her community in several ways. She delivered babies for both white and black families from Seminole County, primarily patrons who either preferred natural births or could not afford deliveries at a hospital. In the 1950s, it cost $70 to stay nine days where soon-to-be mothers were taken care of. Francis was assisted by her sister, Annie Walker, who did the cooking. The house and ward also served as a school, where Marie Francis taught nurses the art of midwifery. Nurses would come from across the state to learn how to delivery infants naturally. A heavy burden on a single working mother, Marie Francis had three daughters, Cassandra Clayton, Daphne Humphrey, and Barbara Torre. Clayton and Humphrey became school teachers and Torre became a purchaser at Seminole Memorial Hospital.

Firpo, Julio R.

Humphrey, Daphne Francis

Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.

Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.

Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.

eng

Collection

Georgetown, Sanford, Florida

Cepero, Laura

Firpo, Julio R.

Dickinson, Joy Wallace. "A Very Rich Trail: Florida’s Black Heritage is Celebrated in an Updated and Expanded State Publication." The Orlando Sentinel, February 24, 2008, page J1. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/24/3287685.htm.

Moore, Stacy. "Midwife on Job Here 32 Years." The Little Sentinel, April 4, 1979, page 26.

Jeria, Michelle. "Sanford's Birth Place: Marie Jones Francis Delivered More than 40,000 Babies in Her Sixth Street Home." The Sanford Herald, Feb 16, 2003, page 1C.

"Midwives Supply Needed Service Community." The Sanford Herald, July 24, 1964, page 3.

Flewellyn, Valada Parker, and the Sanford Historical Society. African Americans of Sanford. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2009.