Sadie's Choice

January 6 is observed in many Christian denominations as the Feast of the Epiphany, when Jesus was presented to the world and worshipped by the Magi.

The same date has a sadder resonance for me as one who is a recipient of what has been a dark, unspoken family secret for generations: My grandmother, Sadie Hartley Spires, died of a self-induced abortion.

Sadie was just past 30 years old when she died and already was the mother of six children, ranging from diapers to adolescence, when, in the winter of 1925, she made the decision to seek the help of a midwife and abort what would have been Child No. 7.

Sadie and her husband, Clyde Spires, were, like most people living in southeastern Ohio then, dirt poor. Clyde supported his family --- as his father did --- as a non-union mine worker, a tough, risky job that barely kept the kids in shoes and clothes and would not have provided enough to eat if the family didn't plant their own gardens and bring home wild game to put on the table when they could find it.

The 1920s were supposed to be boom times in much of America, but in Appalachia, times were as lean as they always had been, especially for undereducated and underskilled workers. There was no question of Sadie working outside the home --- there weren't many jobs for women, even if she could find a way of balancing her duties as wife and mother of six with outside employment.

I have no idea what went on in Sadie's mind when she realized she was pregnant again. Poverty breeds domestic strife --- maybe she and Clyde had a fight and she just decided she didn't want to have any more of his children. Maybe she realized they couldn't afford any more. Maybe she was so overwhelmed by premature aging, the sounds of babies crying and older children squabbling and everything else about her life that she just stopped caring. Obviously, she was desperate.

Whatever the reasons, she found someone who would help her and as family legend has it, she used a "penny pencil" or a buttonhook (an archaic device used for lacing corsets and boots) to cause herself to abort.

She died on Jan. 6, 1925, of peritonitis and other complications, leaving Clyde alone with all those kids. He remarried as soon as he could find a woman who would take him and his brood on --- a slatternly ex-prostitute named Wilma, whom the kids despised. The oldest ones, including my dad, Clifton, ran away from home as soon as they could. Only one of the six children, Susan, graduated from high school.

I believe that life is a blessing and should be accepted and celebrated as such. Hence, when I first heard the story of Sadie's self-caused death from my father when I was in my twenties, I was torn emotionally. I never knew Sadie --- none of her grandchildren knew her, and I was born 26 years after her death. But I could tell, from the reminiscences of my father and his siblings who were old enough to remember her, that she had been a remarkable person for her times. She valued education, and hoarded books like they were diamonds and gold. She was tough and outspoken --- when Ku Klux Klansmen appeared at church one Sunday to make a donation, she shook her head and took her entire family, including her father-in-law, out and refused to be a part of such activities. She hid my father behind her skirts and held a gun on her husband one time when Clyde was about to remove his belt to give Clifton a whipping.

All I've ever seen of Sadie were a few faded pictures --- she is gaunt and unsmiling, looking away from the camera as if distracted by her own thoughts or one of her children --- and some locks of her beautiful chestnut hair that were clipped from her corpse and saved by her oldest daughter, Mildred. She is one of the people from the past whom I would give anything to meet, just to say, "Grandma, I know your story second-hand. Tell me."

Abortion was illegal then and a social disgrace. The cause of her death was never discussed around strangers or children. The anguish in my dad's voice when he blurted out the truth to me was that of a man still hurting like the nine-year-old boy who lost his mother in the winter of 1925.

I wish Sadie had lived, as her husband, children and all those who knew her undoubtedly did. She was loved and respected and her death perplexed everyone. She was a good mother, yet she did not want more children, because she wanted to do the best she could for the children she already had. Nowadays, she would be on the pill or practicing some other kind of contraception. Or maybe, she would even have a legal abortion --- the kind that would have reduced the risks for her, if not her unborn child, and allowed her to see her six living children to adulthood and perhaps changed their lives.

My political sympathies on the issue of abortion tend to differ from a lot of the people with whom I share other views on social issues. I believe, in most cases, that babies should be born and given a chance. As a father whose then-wife miscarried twice, I grieve at not being able to hold those babies in my arms. I see children who are abandoned, unloved, growing up in lonely foster homes or foreign orphanages and fantasize about being rich enough and benevolent enough to take them all in.

Yet at this point in my life, I know that I'm too old to raise a baby and not motivated that way anymore. And I believe that many times, women --- like my grandmother, Sadie Spires --- reach a point where they realize they cannot be a mother to one more child. Perhaps they're too poor. Perhaps they're too young or too old. Perhaps they know they're too selfish and just not cut out for child-raising. Perhaps they've simply got all the children they can afford. Or perhaps they've been forced into a pregnancy. Or realize that the child they would be bringing into the world will have physical and medical needs beyond their capabilities.

Abortion should be the last resort, I believe, but it should be left on the table as a legal and safe option. Not as a solution for pregnancies that are just inconvenient, but as one imperfect way of dealing with the complications of an imperfect world.

Although I agree with the concept that a child should be given a chance at life, I am repulsed by the religious zealots who fail to realize society's responsibility in making the world a healthy and safe place in which to bring children. So many of the anti-abortionists also align themselves with politicians who vote against funding for social support systems that would help an unwed or impoverished mother raise her child in ways that would ensure its physical health and emotional security.

Society also makes it difficult for a child to be removed from an abusive or neglectful home and placed in a secure environment. The emphasis on placement in two-parent, heterosexually-headed families prevents many single people or gay and lesbian people from becoming adoptive parents.

I think, if she had not been desperate and had been in a situation where more options were available, Sadie Spires would not have undergone the self-induced abortion that ended her life and left her children motherless. Family planning clinics were not available in southern Ohio in 1925. It was scandalous to think of giving up a child for adoption simply because you couldn't afford to raise it. And even if one could afford to see a doctor, no respectable physician would assist an overworked and exhausted woman in terminating a pregnancy.

I wish she had not chosen abortion. But I understand why she did. It's not up to me to judge my grandmother, nor for anyone else, except God. All I know is, my father lived the rest of his life grieving for her and I would have liked to have known her in more than just family remembrances.