From: Our Pioneer Heritage
Caroline Baker Rogers Hardy was a pioneer midwife and nurse in St. Goerge, Washington County, Utah for many years. She was born in Noridgewalk, Maine, September 16, 1806 and in young girlhood moved with her mother to Georgetown, Massachusetts where she married Samuel B. Hardy on the 17 of January 1826. For six years a home was made in Georgetown and then the Hardys moved to a farm in East Bradford, now Groveland, Essex County. Here they were visited by Mormon Elders and embraced the gospel in 1840. Immediately after their conversion, the Hardy home became headquarters for missionaries and meetings were held there each Sunday until they joined the migration to Utah. During the years Caroline resided in Massachusetts she studied obstetrics and nursing.
After the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Hardys were visited by Wilford Woodruff and a life-long friendship was established between them. He urged them to go to Utah and accordingly in 1850 they started from Kanesville, Ohio in the company over which he presided. After arriving in Salt Lake City, Caroline took up her practice of midwifery and nursing for about ten years, then went to Southern Utah with her husband who was called to the Dixie Mission. Except for a few years spent in Virgin City, Mrs. Hardy practiced in the St. George area. She brought into the world more than one thousand babies. She, herself, was the mother of a large family. Her eldest son, Augustus, was one of the first four Mormons who came to Dixie as missionaries in 1854. Caroline lived to be ninety-years old, passing away at her home in St. George, in November, 1898. (pg 469)
From: A History of Washington County From Isolation to Destination
Midwives were often more available to the Latter-day Saints who were dispersed widely across the Dixie landscape. Two St. George midwives in the pioneer period were Mary Ann Hunt Nielson and Caroline Baker Rogers Hardy. Both came to Dixie with their husbands in the early pioneer period. Like many others, these two women had some form of midwife training before coming to Utah. Both lived to their nineties and delivered hundreds of babies during their years in southern Utah. They performed their services largely before the territorial government of Utah began licensing midwives in 1893. (pg 106)
Our Pioneer Heritage. Kate B. Carter. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City, Utah: 1963. Volume 6. Salt Lake County Library System: Headquarters-80 East Center Street, Midvale, Utah 84047 (929.7 C323)
A History of Washington County From Isolation to Destination. Douglas D. Alder, Karl F. Brooks. 1996. Utah State Historical Society Washington County Commission. (Salt Lake County Library System 979.248 Ald)
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