Friday, May 22, 2020

Ep 18 Carol Leonard: Of Midwives and Bad Beavers




Carol Leonard: Of Midwives and Bad Beavers
Riding the rails of life from Woodstock to Bad Beaver Farm, Carol Leonard's life continues to unfurl in miraculous ways.

Listen here:
Carol Leonard - The Birth of Midwifery in NH Part 1

Midwives & Bad Beaver Farm - Part 2
https://feeds.podetize.com/ZI9ud5dyes.mp3 

I first heard about Carol Leonard from my Alice who described her to me as one of the most extraordinary people she had ever met. Anyone who knew Alice knows that she did not use words like iconoclast, trail-blazer, pathfinder, lightly, perhaps because she was just such a person herself, though she would have rejected the assertion by saying that she was just a "simple" person. 

Carol Leonard is a New Hampshire certified midwife, the very first in modern NH history. She is also an extraordinary writer, now based in Ellsworth, Maine, where her family roots are deeply embedded in the history there.


Carol, a "foremother of the modern midwifery movement," was the first modern-age midwife certified to practice legally in NH and has been practicing for over the last three decades. She is co-founder of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) representing all midwives in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, serving one term as President of MANA. Her work to improve maternity care in Moscow, Russia, was featured on 20/20 and was written into Congressional Record. She has delivered approximately 1,200 babies safely in their own homes and as you will hear in this podcast and one to follow, she has midwived a good friend and a New Hampshire Icon - Crow Dickenson - through his passing.

Carol is the author of the best-selling memoir, LADY'S HANDS, LION'S HEART, A MIDWIFE'S SAGA, Bad Beaver Publishing, which was awarded the Mother's Naturally award of excellence for Outstanding Book, 2008.

Carol's new book, BAD BEAVER TALES, LOVE AND LIFE ON A NEW SUSTAINABLE HOMESTEAD IN DOWNEAST MAINE, Bad Beaver Publishing is a heart-warming and often uproarious chronicle of she and her husband, Tom Lajoie's life-journey -  building their dream homestead on 400 acres of wilderness in Ellsworth. Bad Beaver is a tree farm. Together Carol and Tom are doing sustainable timber harvesting.  Tom has a saw mill and a 19th century shingle mill there. . . co-habited by somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 beaver and their respective ponds, lodges and habitat, which they argue about on a daily basis.

Recently she has teamed up with Director and producer Kyle Lamont and the very talented team at Good to Go Studios LLC of Ellsworth, Maine to collaborate on a Podcast based on Bad Beaver Tales, It is a beautifully produced Podcast doing justice to the sensitive, funny and often profound writing of Carol Leonard.


The Episode of Bad Beaver Tales included in this podcast was written by Carol Leonard and directed and produced by Kyle Lamont of Good to Go Studios in Ellsworth, Maine. GoodtoGoStudios,com

You can subscribe to Bad Beaver tales -the Podcast - at the link below and leave a review.






$9.99
Often laugh-out-loud funny and irreverent, occasionally disturbing and deeply sorrowful, LADY'S HANDS, LION'S HEART is the saga of Ms. Leonard's fated journey as a young midwife. Her story intertwines three threads: her dedication to the mothers and babies she was groomed to attend; the growing renaissance, despite formidable opposition, of the profession of midwifery in New Hampshire and then in the United States; and finally, a powerful, tragic love story.

Other Formats: Kindle , Paperback



Bad Beaver Tales: Love and Life on a New Sustainable Homestead in DownEast Maine, Volume I ~
The Cunnin' Camp (Volume 1) Paperback – March 31, 2012
by Carol Leonard  (Author)

All Carol's Books


Other Links
Wikipedia: The history and details about Mid-wifery

Midwives Alliance of North America










First Snow on a Larch Bog












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