Forum Flashbacks: Sept. 17-23
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, SEPT. 20, 2001
25 YEARS AGO: Helping My Brother – Lane Luhan helps his little brother, Antonio, learn to hold on to the steering wheel of his pedal tractor. The two were spotted playing at their home in rural Maryville.
50 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Sept. 10, 1976
LaMaze Technique Gains at Hospital
“Having a baby at St. Francis Hospital is becoming more of a “family affair,” says a fact sheet issued from the Obstetrics Department of the hospital. …
No longer can be found at the hospital the stereo-typed, nervous father, sitting in a smoke-filled waiting room, lighting one cigarette after another, anxiously anticipating news from that forbidden-to-enter room with the closed door.
Where are the fathers? They are in the labor and delivery rooms, busy coaching their wives through the different stages of childbirth.
What has been instrumental in bringing about this change is a French doctor named, Fernand LaMaze and his research in psychoprophylaxis. Dr. LaMaze was interested in teaching the pregnant woman “to view childbirth as something for which nature has ingeniously prepared her, which therefore, should not be unbearable.”
He went to visit in the Soviet Union and liked what the doctors there were doing.
The Soviet women were prepared for childbirth by instruction in exercises and relaxation. Dr. LaMaze brought a similar method to the West in 1952 in which the expectant mother is prepared for childbirth by psychological and physical conditioning.
The custom for years in the United States has been to give the mother some anesthetic and she would sleep blissfully to awaken and be brought a baby not really knowing what had happened to her during the delivery.
With the LaMaze Method the mother is awake and involved. The method has been popular here since the spring of 1975.
Dr. Patrick Harr, chief of the Obstetrics Department, said that fathers were allowed into the delivery room at St. Francis Hospital in the past, but the “now generation” couples want to be involved and this has caused a resurgence in the husband-wife childbirth team. He said, “I personally think it gives you a greater feeling to see the baby from the start.”
He wanted to make it clear, however that if a father didn’t want to go into the delivery room that it wouldn’t “make the relationship any less with the child.” Dr. Harr said with so much social pressure to be in there and participating, it takes courage for the father to stand up and say no, but it should be his decision.
Dr. Harr said he thinks the size of today’s families have a lot to do with the fathers wanting to participate more because they don’t have as many chances with only having maybe one or two children completing the family circle.
75 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Sept. 22, 1951
Ravenwood School Keeps Band; Makes Repairs To Building by Community-Backed Work Project
It was the choice between a school band and repairing the school building that prompted the citizens of Ravenwood and the new superintendent to take action. Citizen labor was bartered for a band instructor’s salary.
When Supt. M. F. Wille told mothers of band students at Ravenwood school that the expense of badly needed repairs would necessitate depriving the school of a band instructor, the mothers called a meeting to discuss the matter.
Supt. Wille hit upon the idea of trading labor for payment of a band instructor and with approval from the board of education proposed the plan on Monday night. …
Chairmen were appointed to head the areas of work and committee meetings were held to organize the men and women.
Work was classified as follows: felling of trees, painting school rooms, preparing meals for the workers, digging ditches, assembling lockers, carpenter and electrical work, replacing water pipes, leveling the school ground. …
The message was taken seriously and on Friday morning 75 persons came out to work. Town people who could not come sent lunch and hired others to help with the project.
The citizens brought their own equipment and two tractors and chain and drag saws were contributed to the cause. …
A softball diamond now appears in what was once a wooded area. The ground was leveled after trees were bulldozed over by a K-6 diesel caterpillar furnished by the township. …
Through the efforts of Ravenwood’s new superintendent and community citizens, a subject which was added to the curriculum for the first time last year again is being offered to Ravenwood school students. A band instructor comes to the school twice a week.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50- and 75-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
