New York Times reporter Jack MacCormac at the time described her as an “almost demoniac figure, who helped her fellow villagers with equal readiness into time and eternity … She seems from all accounts to have been a figure eminently fit to flit around the bubbling caldron in Macbeth …”
Midwives were powerful figures in European villages back in the day. Delivering babies was only one of their duties, as they were usually the de facto doctor in the village, too. They were expert herbalists, and could heal everything from a headache to a hernia. And if someone needed a look into their future, or an answer to their problem, midwives like Auntie Suzy could do that too, using an array of divining tools pulled from the kitchen cupboard.
Auntie Suzy was a mystical figure in the rural outpost of Nagyrev, and a woman who had tremendous influence over her village. Perhaps too much influence…