Sister Angela Murdaugh, a Franciscan sister of Mary and certified nurse midwife, died this month at 84. She was named to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame and received the Texas Nurse of the Year award, among other honors – but more importantly, she made a huge impact.
Jackie Griggs, the owner of the Birth Center of Beaumont, was her good friend and joined the Standard to reflect on Sister Angela’s legacy.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Can you tell us what first brought Sister Angela to Texas?
Jackie Griggs: She went to school at Columbia University in New York City with the goal of becoming a nurse midwife and coming to the border with Texas and Mexico to serve women that needed help with childbirth.
She knew there was a big need there, and she wanted to fill it. So that’s what brought her here in the first place in the 1970s.
Was it the infant mortality or specific issues on the border that drew her there?
Yes, it was infant and maternal mortality. And she knew that it was a lot higher than the rest of the United States and that there was a problem there that needed to be solved.
And it still amazes me – you know, she went to become a nurse midwife right out of high school. She went straight to college for that. And at that time, in the late 50s, early 60s, there weren’t very many nurse midwife programs. But she found one, got accepted.
And then from there, she went as soon as she could straight to the border. She got permission or she got authority to do that work through the order that she belonged to, the Franciscan Order. So they were totally behind her. She saw a need, and she carried through with it.
What was her impact?
Oh, it was huge. Sister Angela is beloved by so many people. She touched so many lives – the women and families she served. Sister Angela saw such a need in Texas and nationwide for midwifery care and care for normal, healthy women with normal pregnancies, which is the majority of women.
Also, she helped bring midwives together. It was her recommendation that we have a thing once a year called the gathering of midwives. It’s like a retreat. That’s a major thing. We really appreciate what she did for that.
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She was actually involved in writing regulations for birth centers in Texas. How has that impacted Texans?
Yes, that’s one of the topmost things she did – did such a good job of helping working with the Department of Health in the 70s and 80s to get good birth center regulations written for Texas.
And ever since then, our birth center regulations help us practice safely and ethically. It just gave us a really good foundation. And I think that’s one reason Texas has more birth centers than any other state.
Well, personally, I understand she was someone you could call for advice on midwifery challenges. Can you recall a time she really helped you?
Sometimes I would just call her or send her a text and just say, “Please pray for me to know what to do.” You know, sometimes I would be with someone that had been in labor for a long time or having a problem, and usually she would just pray for me.
And just knowing she was there for me was a big, big help. And then sometimes I would call her for a consultation on a situation, and she would always be glad to do that. She had so much experience.
She focused her later career on a very different area of service: She became a prison advocate. Why do you think that was a transition she wanted to make?
After she retired from midwifery, she was living in Weslaco for many, many years, running Holy Family Birth Center. But then when she retired, she moved to Corpus Christi, and she worked at some of the prisons in those areas.
She wanted to reach out to people that needed help. And one thing about the prison ministry was she still got to sleep at night. She told me that was important.
