Thirteen-year-old Anna Kowalski lay in the maternity ward at Boston City Hospital on February 20, 1937, having just given birth to a baby boy—and fifty-eight-year-old ward nurse Mrs. Rose Murphy had been reviewing the patient records and visi
tor logs as part of her rounds—and she’d noticed that patient “Anna Kowalski, age 1
3” had listed “Stefan Kowalski, husband, age 38” in the visitor log—and Nurse Murphy had gone to Anna’s bedside and had said gently “Anna, I see in your chart you’re thirteen years old and you’ve listed a thirty-eight-year-old husband in the visitor log. Can you tell me about your marriage?”—and Anna had explained she’d been married at twelve—and Nurse Murphy had immediately documented in the patient medical record: “Patient age 13, postpartum day 1, states married at age 12 to man age 38. Child marriage and possible abuse. Social services notified”—and she’d contacted the hospital social worker and administrators—and the maternity ward visitor log combined with Anna’s medical records became evidence: official hospital documentation of a thirteen-year-old new mother with a thirty-eight-year-old “husband”—and Stefan was barred from hospital visitation and arrested when he arrived, and Anna was provided post-birth support and protection—and hospitals implemented policies requiring social work consultations for all maternity patients under fifteen.
Anna lived until 2019, dying at age ninety-five. Before her death, she reflected: “I was thirteen when I gave birth in a hospital maternity ward. The nurse reviewed the visitor log and saw I’d listed a thirty-eight-year-old husband. She asked about my marriage and I told her I’d been
married at twelve. She wrote it in my medical record and called social services. That visitor log and medical record became evidence. Hospitals document patient care. That nurse documented my child marriage through routine record review.”
