Tampa Midwife Records
of Maria
Messina Greco
Births from 1907 to 1939
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The midwife records of Maria
Messina Greco are comprised of about 62 palm-sized
notepads. Most of the early years take up one or two books, then later
three to four books. The years from 1935 to 1939 are contained in one
book. The post-it notes were added by the LDS church when they microfilmed the records. The original labeling can be seen above the post-it note. All the entries are written in Italian by Maria Messina Greco, none of the entries record the year of birth of the child, only the day, month and time. The year must be determined from the cover or the first page of the book. The large ring binder seen at the top, was not microfilmed. It is apparent that at some point in time, somebody sought to translate the records to English and typed them out, putting the pages in this binder. This binder contains easily read records from 1908 through 1912. The births listed in this binder for the first half of 1908 are not found in any of the palm sized notepads. The oldest notepad starts in mid-1908. It is my conclusion that there was a notepad containing births for the first half of 1908, but was lost and/or not sent to LDS for microfilming. The pages in the binder are very fragile and thin, typed on both sides. Those for 1912 being at the back of the book, crumbling at the edges.
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Many years ago these records were sent to the
Latter Day Saints church library in Salt Lake City and were put on microfilm.
These microfilms are available for viewing in the LDS Family History Center on
Lutz Lake Fern Road near Gunn Highway in Lutz.
7851 Lutz Lake Fern Rd
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The cover of the 1909 notepad.
A scan of a page from 1909. This is not typical quality, it's one of the rare pages written in ink. Most are written in pencil and are extremely light. |
A close up scan of the top half of the first page of the typewritten translation, 1908.
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Notice that children were listed in this format:
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 In the early records, 1908 and some 1909, every entry has been "X" out. I suspect it meant the fee was paid. Then in later books such as this one, the red slash probably indicates this. Later, each entry has the actual fee written in red. Most were $15 to $20. (The lower rates were often accompanied by a notation such as "C. Cubano" (Circulo Cubano), "B. Publico" (Beneficia Publico?) probably indicating membership in these medical benefit programs.
There was hardly a day that Maria did not deliver a baby. Many days she delivered up to 4 children. One particular day I found she had delivered children at 4am, 11am and then twins at 9 and 9:15pm. In my conversation with Adele Greco, she told me that her husband, Salvatore Greco (1st cousin of the Salvatore Greco who was married to Maria Messina) always spoke of Maria as a remarkable woman.
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 Meet Salvatore Greco (1st cousin of Maria Messina Greco's husband Salvatore) and his wife Adele, gracious donors of the original books.
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There is no evidence she delivered "about 10,000 children" in Tampa. Her record books account for 6,736 deliveries beginning Jan 3, 1908. There is a possibility she started delivering babies in the fall of 1907. But it's highly doubtful she delivered 3,300 in 3 months. |
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OBIT OF SALVATORE C. GRECO Maria's husband died about a year before her death. This Salvatore C. Greco was a 1st cousin to the one seen here in this feature who donated the record books. |
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 If you believe your Hispanic or Italian ancestor may have been born at home, in Ybor City or West Tampa during this time period, there is a good chance were delivered by Maria Messina Greco. THE TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT
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