‘Nothing is more precious than a baby’

Every now and then Betty Caffrey, a 95-year-old great-grandmother from Mountain Top, finds evidence that her prayers have been answered.

Sometimes it happens when a young mother introduces her to a baby and thanks Caffrey for counseling her away from the abortion she’d been contemplating.

Sometimes it happens when an older mother shares that the baby she gave up for adoption decades ago is now an adult, found her, and they had a joyful reunion.

Other times Caffrey, who founded the Wyoming Valley Chapter of Pennsylvanians for Human Life more than 40 years ago, doesn’t know what happened in a particular case. Or, she hears that an unplanned pregnancy ended in an abortion, which she considers a tragedy.

In any case, she keeps on praying.

“From 7 to 8 in the morning,” she said, “I spend an hour every morning in prayer.”

Then, if it’s a regular weekday morning, she gets ready for work — tending to her unpaid position running the Pro-Life Center in Wilkes-Barre.

“Who, at this age, would still be going to work every day?” marveled author Mary Stchur, who recently wrote a biography of Caffrey, called “Never Alone.” The title refers to Caffrey’s belief that the Holy Spirit is always with her.

“I somehow feel as if I’ve always known her,” said Stchur, who often sent donations to the Pro-Life Center in honor of the birth of a child or grandchild, and was always impressed to receive a hand-written thank-you note from Caffrey.

Stchur, who retired in 2019 as chair of the English department at Luzerne County Community College, felt inspired to write about Caffrey’s life. “For almost 50 years, she worked for no pay, to help women and babies,” Stchur said. “I wanted to honor Betty, but she doesn’t want the honor. She wants recognition of what we need to do to save lives. She said, ‘don’t just write about me. Write about the movement’.”

So, if you pick up a copy of “Never Alone,” you will read about both Caffrey’s life and the local anti-abortion movement.

A child of the Great Depression

Caffrey was born in 1928, just in time to be a child of the Great Depression, and grew up in Hanover Township, the youngest of three sisters.

By 1933, unemployment had soared to 37% in Pennsylvania, Stchur wrote, and Caffrey remembers “We certainly did not have much to eat.” Her family would wait in a Welfare line for apples, flour and potatoes — and Caffrey believes the memory of early poverty increases her compassion for the mothers she serves.

If you visit the Pro-Life Center, located on Hanover Street in Wilkes-Barre, you’ll see a room filled with tubs of baby clothes, sorted according to size and season, that moms can keep. “If they want to have their baby christened, we’ll loan them a christening gown,” Caffrey said.

In Caffrey’s adjoining office, packages of diapers and baby wipes also are available for mothers in need.

“There is life after diapers,” Stchur said with a slight chuckle, speaking from the vantage point of a mother of seven. “Having a baby changes your life, but it doesn’t ruin your life.”

Longtime activist

“Nothing is more precious than a baby,” said Caffrey, whose activism began in the 1970s, when she accompanied a friend to a meeting of a small pro-life group at the former Mercy Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, was horrified by a speaker’s description of abortions, and felt called to help the group.

Over the years she has written letters to editors, attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., protested local visits of pro-choice politicians, edited the Pennsylvanians for Human Life newsletter, arranged for anti-abortion ads on billboards and in newspapers, and provided one-on-one counseling to many.

In 1990, she served as emcee on Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square as 2,500 protesters showed up to demonstrate to a visiting Dr. Chase Brigham that they didn’t want him to set up an abortion clinic in Wilkes-Barre.

“Dr. Brigham, we know that you are here, and you are welcome here,” she said. “But not to do abortions.”

A two-hour conversation with the doctor followed that rally, Stchur wrote, and Caffrey reported he agreed to leave the area.

Caffrey also helped arrange local Respect Life banquets, which featured various speakers, including physicians Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, who was an anti-abortion activist; and Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Dr. Anthony Levantino, both former providers of abortions who switched sides.

Levantino joined the anti-abortion side, Stchur wrote, “after experiencing the loss of his own child who was hit and killed by a car outside his home,” and Nathanson was influenced “by the beginning of the ultrasound technology that revealed the unmistakable form of a child and the movements of life that come with it.”

Other speakers included Jeffrey Steinberg, a humorist and singer who was born without arms and legs; Don Feder, author of “A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America,” and Pastor Bobby Welsh, a Vietnam veteran and Green Beret who later became president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In 1986 Caffrey invited Mother Teresa of Calcutta to speak; the founder of the Missionaries of Charity responded via letter it would not be possible, “but I will keep you and the beautiful work you are doing in my prayers.”

Being a friend

Over the years some people have told Caffrey they consider abortion to be a complex issue, and a gray area. She doesn’t see it that way but as a simple question of life or death for a baby.

“We know we are on the right side,” she said.

Based on testimony from women she has met, she says there’s also a possibility of lifelong grief for a mother who decides to terminate a pregnancy. “There’s not a day that goes by without them thinking about the baby,” said Caffrey, who has recommended a program called Rachel’s Vineyard as a way to find closure.

To women who are pregnant and feeling alone, Caffrey said, she wants to let each one know “she has a friend, someone who cares about her and her baby.”

The center survives on donations and the work of volunteers, with no federal, state, local or diocesan funds. It is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, and its phone number is 570-826-1819. Copies of “Never Alone” are available at Barnes & Noble in Wilkes-Barre Township, Heaven and Earth Gift Shop in Scranton and Bedwick’s Pharmacy & Gift Shop in Wilkes-Barre. You may also contact Mary Stchur at mnstchur@gmail.com to order a book.