Gail Mraz, pioneer of home-birthing in the state

Mother of nine, she delivered more than 250 babies. She helped to set the standards for midwifery in Minnesota.

By Tom Ford, Star Tribune

Last update: August 19, 2007 - 11:07 PM

Sylvia Kosloski was in labor with her second child at home in Milaca, Minn., struggling with her breathing, when she heard words that changed her life.

Gail Mraz, Kosloski's devoted midwife, looked at Kosloski and said: "Sylvia, motherhood is one great big, long letting go."

That nugget of wisdom 28 years ago not only eased Kosloski's mind, she said, it also inspired her to start a new career and pass on that nugget of wisdom to hundreds of other mothers.

"It was because of Gail Mraz's care that I am a midwife now," Kosloski said Sunday.

Mraz, a lifelong Minneapolis resident and mother of nine, was a pioneer in home-birthing and helped reestablish the practice across Minnesota. She delivered more than 250 babies, two of them her own granddaughters.

Mraz died Thursday at her Linden Hills home. She was 71 and had been in declining health. The last baby she delivered at home was her granddaughter Chloe Sofia Arellano about 10 years ago.

"Her career was caring for children, whether it was her own children or other people's," said Nick Mraz, her third-youngest child.

He was the first she gave birth to at home, aided and -- like Kosloski -- deeply shaped and influenced by her midwife, Ebba Kirschbaum.

Mraz's own experience helped cement her belief that birth was not a medical procedure that necessarily belonged in a hospital but rather a natural process that seemed best to take place in a warm, softly lit, comfortable home, Nick Mraz said.

In 1975, Mraz co-founded Genesis, a Twin Cities midwivery group, and also helped to write the care standards used as midwives were again being licensed in the state.

Her middle child, son Paul Mraz, said he remembers the basket of prenatal care equipment his mother would keep by their door, ready to grab and head out whenever she got the call from an expectant mother.

"When my mom saw someone in need, that transcended all other things that she might see in that person," he said.

That desire to help others extended to her many years of work as a nurse at Mount Olivet Nursing Home in Minneapolis and to her volunteer efforts with the poor and homeless, which included several summers in Olivia, Minn., working at a clinic for migrant farm workers.

Much of her volunteer work around the Twin Cities was done through her church, St. John the Baptist Episcopal in Minneapolis.

Its rector, the Rev. Mariann Budde, said that what struck her about Mraz was how she combined a quiet but fierce commitment to the poor with a warm domesticity.

"She had a flair for making everything beautiful, everything special," Budde said.

Mraz's sister-in-law, Barbara Mraz, called her "a kind of domestic artist," especially noting one of her Christmas rituals. She would take her children's bed sheets, put them in a box with cinammon and spices for two weeks, then put them back on her children's beds the night before Christmas.

"It was magic," Barbara Mraz said.

Such touches carried over into her midwivery work.

Mraz is preceded in death by her husbands, William Mraz (the father to their nine children) and William Goddard. She is survived by her children, Melissa Arellano, Gina Mraz, Greta Mraz, Jill Mraz, Paul Mraz, Jessica Mraz, Nicholas Mraz, Jacob Mraz and Natasha (Dolly) Reese-Mraz.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. John's Episcopal Church, 4201 Sheridan Av. S., Minneapolis. Memorials preferred to the church or Healthcare For The Homeless, in care of Fred Woods, 183 Old 6th St., St. Paul, 55102.

Tom Ford • 612-673-4921

Tom Ford • tford@startribune.com

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