From 1889, after having lost 24 of her own children at birth or soon after, Orelena Puckett found a calling in midwifery, which she undertook for the rest of her life. She died soon after the coming of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and is commemorated at Milepost 189.9 in Virginia.
The preserved Puckett Cabin was moved to the property for one of John’s sisters, and while John and Orelena Puckett lived in a nearby larger cabin, this one is preserved by the National Park Service to keep the memory of Orelena Puckett alive.
The background of Orelena Hawks Puckett’s long and unusual life is replete with tragedy and misfortune. Born in Surry County, North Carolina, likely in 1844, she married John Puckett of Ararat, Virginia, in 1860.
Orelena Puckett sits with her husband John, circa 1912.
Their first child, Julia Ann, was born in 1862, but died within a few months of birth, a tragic portend of Orelena Puckett losing 23 more infants — either in birth or soon after — over the ensuing 20-plus years. The cause is speculated to be Rh hemolytic disease, a condition that occurs when an Rh-negative mother carries an Rh-positive baby.
By 1875, the Pucketts had moved from their first home — a crude one-room cabin that some likened to a corn crib — to a two-story log house that John built in Carroll County, Virginia. The last four babies were born here and were laid to rest in Jake Puckett Graveyard atop Groundhog Mountain near their new home. At the time Orelena’s last child entered the world she was about 37 years old.
The previous 20 of Orelena and John’s infants were interred in the Reed Puckett Cemetery, close to their first home. They took comfort knowing their babies slept perpetually on a site in Patrick County. The graves are stretched out in a single row, parallel to an aged split-rail fence. Their places of slumber are marked by unassuming field stones.
The transition to midwifery was apparently both rapid and pervasive. Over the decades until a year before her death, in 1939, she served as midwife to more than 1,000 children.
The first delivery, in 1889, began when a neighbor, Byrum Bowman, knocked on the Pucketts’ door in search of help with the apparent imminent arrival of his wife’s baby.
And with that walk to the Bowman home to “catch her first baby,” Puckett took the first step in leaving behind her tragic childbearing years, which she had characterized as “alike as burrs on a mule’s tail.”
Aunt Orelena Puckett poses with Maxwell Dale Hawks, the last child she delivered, in a National Park Service photograph.
The end of her services was apparently due not to advancing age, but to the move from her home, a forced move caused by the onset of the building of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
According to Iduna Quesinberry, Puckett’s great niece, starting with that first delivery in 1889, it was full-time midwifery from that day on: “They kept her goin’ around bornin’ babies. She borned me one morning. I heard ‘em tell it lots of times. Borned me one morning, went below the mountain, borned another young’un, come back got her dinner after that. [In all] she borned five generations.”
During her years as a midwife, Puckett carried a worn satchel, most likely of leather. Within it were scissors, twine, eyedrops, gauze and camphor, and she may also have carried peach or apple brandy.
In some instances, she apparently walked five miles to carry out her work, was somewhat akin to the postman: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays [Orelena Hawks Puckett] from the swift completion of her appointed rounds.”
When the roads were icy, tacking nails to the soles of her overshoes offered improved footing. For the longer distances, she relied on hoof power, aboard an old white mule, Roadie, or a red horse called Roy. If she were fortunate, she might catch a ride from a passing horse-and-buggy, or in more modern times, a motorized vehicle.
As a midwife, Orelena had her own bag of tricks. In one case while present at a birthing, along with a Dr. Cundiff where the mother-to-be was experiencing an extremely long labor, Puckett offered the question. “Is it about time to feather her?” And as the labor continued with little result, Puckett asked again, “Is it about time to feather her?”
Twenty Puckett infants are buried in the graveyard near where John first built a cabin for Orelena. The babies lie in one long row. Most of their resting places are marked by simple field stones, one at the head, one at the foot, barely three feet apart.
The doctor, having no idea what that meant, eventually assented. From her medical satchel, she pulled out a goose feather that she put in a fire, then placed the smoldering feather under the would-be mother’s nose. As the smoke curled up into her nostrils, she had a fit of coughing and sneezing and right away “dropped the baby.”
Many seemed to trust her more than a doctor. According to Foy Hawks, one of Puckett’s great grandnephews, when Puckett looked in on a woman being treated for tumors by a physician, she discovered that the ailing woman had been misdiagnosed. Instead of tumors she was pregnant with twins. But the treatment the misguided doctor adhered to caused the death of both infants. When the unfortunate woman found herself pregnant a second time, she bypassed the doctor and called on Puckett, who delivered a healthy baby boy.
Raymond Pruitt, a neighbor of Aunt Orelena stated, as a rule “She never did get no money. People gave her things like food.” Corn, beans, fatback, honey, dried apples, even straw to stuff mattresses, were just a few of the items offered. Other sources note Puckett receiving payments of from $1 to $6 in the later years of her work.
Some sources cite Orelena’s marriage to John as a spur to send her out to tend to others. One quote attributed to her: “First monthly honey… next month pie ... third month…Get out here and work, you damn bitch, same as I.” But, by most accounts when her husband died in 1912, Orelena was inconsolable.
The Puckett headstone carries the spelling “Orlena.”
Orelena Puckett was a small person, weighing about 100 pounds. She was not book smart, and never learned to read nor write. But she held a wealth of folklore expertise when it came to her rural surroundings. Like most of her neighbors, she was cash poor; they either made or bartered for what they needed. Her grocery store was in the garden or in the woods where she foraged for edibles.
Apparently Puckett made arrangements for her funeral as a young woman. She set out her black burial dress, folded it neatly and placed in the pie safe; there it sat for years.
On October 21, 1939, at 7:10 p.m., in the home of Coy Hawks, where Orelena was staying, cloths were draped over all the mirrors. Orelena Puckett had passed away just a few weeks after being forced from the home that John had built in 1875 due to the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The news of her death spread quickly. She was waked in Coy and Octavis Hawks’ home. A steady stream of family and neighbors came to the Hawks’ home to view the woman they knew and loved. Almost all could lay claim to the fact that Orelena Puckett had brought them into this world.
The passing of Orelena Puckett was not the end of her story. At Milepost 189.9 of the Blue Ridge Parkway stands what is designated at the Puckett Cabin, in commemoration of Orelena Hawks Puckett. The dwelling, preserved and modified, actually belonged to Betty Puckett, one of John Puckett’s sisters. Aunt Betty Puckett’s cabin was incorrectly identified by the NPS as the former home of Aunt Orelena Hawks Puckett and serves as the memorial to her life and work.
A Lovely Name Heard Many Ways
Throughout her lifetime, Orelena Puckett’s first name was spelled differently, with those spellings based on hearing rather than writing, as Puckett apparently could not write her name. Census takers recorded Olinah (1850), Pauline (1860), Aulina (1870), Orlena (1880), Aulina (1900), Orlenna (1910), Orlean (1920), and Orlene (1930).
In 1913, when Puckett applied for a pension based on her husband’s service in the Confederate army, the notary public who filled out the form, spelled her name Orleana. However, descendants of her family and residents of the community where she lived, remember her as Aunt Orlean. She could not write, so we don’t know how she spelled it herself. The Historical Marker Database uses Orelena, the spelling we have used here.
The story above first appeared in our May / June 2025 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!