Anne Elizabeth, Early Utah Midwife

Anne Elizabeth Cramer, courtesy of the author

    

 

    Anne Elizabeth Cramer Kaiser, my second great-grandmother, was born in a small village in Denmark in 1849.  In 1874, Anne brought her family to the United States of America. They sailed on the Wyoming, a ship built in 1870 in Newcastle, England.  This three-week transatlantic voyage could not have been easy for the mother of three young children.  She brought her younger brother and two elderly parents on this journey. They sailed to the port of New York and traveled to Utah via the new transcontinental railroad.  Her husband, Carl Anton Kaiser, arrived at Castle Gardens, New York, the following year in 1875.  

                                                            

The Wyoming

    The family settled in Huntsville, Box Elder County, Utah, that year.  They became Latter Day Saints in Denmark and followed their faith to Utah. Carl farmed, and Anne raised the children and carried on the tradition of the women in her family by providing midwife services to her community.  By 1880, the family was living in Brigham City.  Both husband and wife led very active lives within their community and church.  Anne joined the choir and continued to sing with them for thirty-five years.  She sang with a combined choir at a special conference where she heard Brigham Young give his last public speech.

     Carl became a citizen in 1882.  He worked in the historic Baron Woolen Mills in Brigham City.  He acquired a passport in 1889.   According to church records, he returned to Europe, going to Bohemia in June of 1890 for his Mission.  He and another Latter Day Saint were arrested and imprisoned there after a false report that they had been ready to perform a baptism. Finally, on October 7th, 1890, he was released and allowed to return to the United States.

                                                                

                                         Carl Anton Kaiser, courtesy of the author

     Anne continued her work as a midwife and furthered her studies, obtaining her degree in obstetrics in April of 1893, three years before statehood.  While Utah was still a territory, she received her license to practice midwifery from the Board of Medical Examiners in Salt Lake City.  

                                         License to Practice Obstetrics, courtesy of the author

She continued to practice for another thirty-eight years, delivering family, friends, and children of the community.  She delivered some 2000 babies, many of them in Box Elder County.  Her records are held by the State of Utah as some of the first birth records in the area.  She delivered my grandmother and most of my great-aunts and uncles.  

                                          Birth Record, courtesy of the author

She was a member of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Brigham City.  In 1934, she was made an honorary lifetime member of the club.  My grandmother told me Anne traveled in all weather, walking, bicycling, riding a horse, driving a buggy or bobsleigh in the winter, and riding the train to carry out her profession.  This brave working woman reminds me she is the reason I am here.  She died in Brigham City in 1948 at the age of 98.

                                                                    

                                            Anne Elizabeth Cramer, courtesy of the author