Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

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Dona Jesusita Aragon

Dona
Jesusita
Aragon

FROM A TRADITION OF HEALING & BIRTHING

Honored July, 1987

Dona Jesusita Aragon

Dona Jesusita, healer and midwife of northern New Mexico, in her seven decades of on the job delivered more than twelve thousand babies--the population of a good sized New Mexican town.

Born on a ranch in Sapello, known as El Rancho Trujillo in 1908, she delivered her first baby when she was only thirteen years old. "My grandmother, Dolores Gallegos, a midwife, taught me," Jesusita recalled. "She wasn't there that day because she went to deliver another baby. One of my aunts had a baby, so I had to help her. But I knew everything."

Her Tia Valentina, the curandera in the family, taught her the use of traditional healing herbs. Jesusita became interested in healing as well as delivering babies.