Aunt Orlean: The Woman Who Turned Unimaginable Loss into a Lifetime of Mercy

Aunt Orlean: The Woman Who Turned Unimaginable Loss into a Lifetime of Mercy

She buried twenty-four babies of her own—and then spent the next fifty years making sure no other mother had to endure that pain.

This is the story of Orlean Hawks Puckett, one of the most quietly extraordinary women in American history.

 

 

A Life That Began with Hardship

Orlean Hawks was born around 1844 in North Carolina, in a time and place where poverty was common and opportunity was rare—especially for women. She received little formal education. Like many girls of her era, her future seemed narrowly defined.

At sixteen, she married John Puckett, and together they settled near Groundhog Mountain in the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Life there was harsh. Families relied on one another, doctors were scarce, and survival required endurance.

 

 

 

In 1862, Orlean gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Julia Ann.

For seven months, she experienced the joy she had longed for.

Then illness took her baby away.

Twenty-Four Pregnancies. Zero Survivors.

Orlean tried again, believing the loss was a cruel exception.

But the next baby died within days.

Then another.

And another.

Over the course of her marriage, Orlean became pregnant 24 times.

Some babies were stillborn.

Some lived only hours.

A few survived days.

None lived long enough to grow.

Today, doctors believe Orlean likely suffered from Rh hemolytic disease, a blood incompatibility that causes a mother’s immune system to attack her unborn children. In the 1800s, this condition was unknown and untreatable. There were no explanations—only repeated tragedy.

 

 

 

On the slopes of Groundhog Mountain, Orlean buried her babies one by one. A small cemetery of tiny graves grew near her home—silent witnesses to a grief that never eased.

Most people would have been broken beyond recovery.

Orlean was not.

Finding Purpose in the Midst of Grief

In 1889, when Orlean was around 50 years old, a neighbor went into labor. There was no doctor. No trained midwife. No help.

Orlean stepped forward.

Despite losing every child she had ever carried, she helped bring that baby safely into the world.

In that moment, something changed.

She had found her calling.

The Midwife of the Mountains

From that day on, Orlean Hawks Puckett became a midwife—serving the isolated Appalachian communities for the next half-century.

She traveled on foot or horseback, sometimes twenty miles or more, through mountains, rivers, snow, and darkness to reach women in labor.

She never charged money.

Not once.

She worked in one-room cabins with dirt floors. She had no hospital, no modern tools, no anesthesia, no antibiotics. What she had was experience, intuition, and fierce determination.

 

 

 

Her techniques blended practical skill with Appalachian folk knowledge:

Heated stones to keep mothers warm

Careful positioning and breathing

And when labor stalled, a curious but effective method—burning a goose feather so the smoke caused coughing and sneezing, triggering contractions

Strange as it sounds, it worked.

An Unmatched Record

Over her lifetime, Orlean Hawks Puckett delivered more than 1,000 babies.

And here is what makes her legacy almost unbelievable:

She never lost a single mother.

She never lost a single baby.

Not one.

In an era when childbirth was one of the leading causes of death for women—and in one of the most remote regions of the country—this woman, who had lost every child of her own, ensured life for a thousand others.

 

 

 

People called her “Aunt Orlean.” She became beloved across the region—not just for her skill, but for her generosity. Travelers recalled that she would insist they stop and eat with her, sharing whatever little food she had.

Her compassion was as legendary as her endurance.

The Pain That Never Left

Despite her service, Orlean never escaped her grief. The small cemetery on Groundhog Mountain remained—a place of memory and sorrow.

Each baby she delivered was also a reminder of the children she never held long enough to know.

Yet she chose, again and again, to help anyway.

A Final Displacement

In 1939, when Orlean was in her 90s, the U.S. government began building the Blue Ridge Parkway. The project cut directly through her land.

She was forced to leave the home she had lived in for decades—the land where she had buried her children and built her life of service.

 

 

 

Three weeks later, she died.

Some said it was simply her time. Others believed the heartbreak of displacement was too much. The woman who had crossed mountains to save others could not survive being torn from the place that held her entire story.

A Legacy That Endures

Today, Puckett Cabin still stands at Milepost 190 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, preserved by the National Park Service. Most visitors see only a simple mountain cabin.

They don’t always realize what it represents.

Orlean Hawks Puckett transformed the deepest grief a person can know into a lifetime of compassion. She could not save her own children—but she saved everyone else’s.

Her legacy also lives on through the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, which continues work in child, parent, and family development.

Why Her Story Matters

Orlean Hawks Puckett proves something powerful:

You are not defined by what you lose.

You are defined by what you choose to do with that loss.

She chose service.

She chose love.

She chose to keep showing up.

She buried 24 babies.

Then she delivered 1,000.

That isn’t just resilience.

That is transformation.

That is turning a wound into a gift.