Talking Location With N S Brooks – SCOTLAND
A story of teenage pregnancy in 1970 FLORIDA
4th February 2025
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, a story of teenage pregnancy in 1970 Florida.
Wellwood House in St Augustine, Florida was a Maternity Home – one of many across the United States. Unmarried teenage pregnancy was considered a disgrace, abortion was still not a possibility in 1970, and parents sent their daughters there to be ‘looked after’ during pregnancy, give birth, and then offer up the babies up for adoption. They could then return home as if nothing had happened. Often their time away was explained to friends and neighbours by saying they had been caring for an ill aunt in a faraway city (or some such).
Neva was driven many miles across several states to be dropped off at Wellwood House by her father. That was the last time her real name was used – in the Home she was named Fern. She, and the other twelve girls there had aliases. As their babies were born they all signed the birth certificate as ‘Jane Doe’. It was a hard, disciplined, but not necessarily cruel, existence. Nourishment for their babies was important, and the food was adequate if not appetising. Their weight was controlled so they stayed healthy. But the girls felt alone and frightened. Rumours of the horrors of childbirth abounded.
A travelling library visited the Home every two weeks, an event the girls looked forward to. On one such visit the librarian, Miss Parcoe, gave Fern a book about witchcraft. The girls conjured up a spell to rid one of their number of morning sickness, and it worked by transferring the sickness to a member of staff. The consequences were serious. The girls got deeper and deeper into the magic as the weeks went by. You pay for your use of witchcraft, normally with your blood… You enter a pact with the devil which it is extremely dangerous to try and break. The climax of the book is a series of horrendous events.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is an extremely thought provoking read. The witchcraft element is more than interesting but, for me, what stood out is the difference in attitude and behaviour towards pregnant teenagers from back then to now. When the girls from Wellwood House went to hospital to have their babies delivered they were treated very much as sub-citizens by the medical staff. The book describes (in quite some detail) the process of childbirth and the horrors that the girls went through – all alone and far from family and friends – before they gave up their babies for adoption. This behaviour really only changed with the 1973 Wade v Roe case which opened the door to much greater access to legal abortions.
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