Sister Theophane and Sister Michael, wearing the blue-grey habit of the Medical Mission Sisters,* arrived in Santa Fe, N. Mex. one bleak November day in 1943. The sisters had not come for the scenery. They were there because of a grim fact: Santa Fe County had the highest infant mortality rate (111 per 1,000) and the second highest maternal death rate (over 50 per 10,000) in the U.S.
In all New Mexico (pop. 500,000), there were two obstetricians. The two nuns, graduate nurse-midwives themselves, teamed up with one of the obstetricians,
Dr. Nancy...
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