How a Tennessee woman turned surrogate for her former high school teacher
Duck River, Tennessee — For as long as they've been married, Ashley and Spencer Totty of Duck River, Tennessee, have dreamed of raising more than just the cows they have on their farm.
The former high school teacher and her utility lineman husband, married since October 2014, both really wanted a family.
"I've always wanted to be a mom," the 35-year-old Ashley told CBS News. "And we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. And we still don't know why."
The couple had five miscarriages. In vitro fertilization treatments didn't work, and the dream faded.
That is when Ashley received a message described by Spencer as "completely out of the blue." Now, she believes it was sent by God. But at the time it came in the form of a note through Facebook Messenger, sent by a former student from long ago who had heard what the couple was going through.
"It's weighed heavy on my heart for several years now," the note from 27-year-old Hannah Dearman read. "Idk (I don't know) where you are with your journey to motherhood, or what your circumstances are. However, If you ever need a surrogate, I'd love to help you become a mom. I hope this isn't weird, but I love you and feel like you're a wonderful person and would be the best mom. I have prayed for you often."
How did Ashley respond?
"I was like, you know what, at this point, nothing is crazy to me," Ashley said.
Dearman, a mother of three, remembers her old teacher vividly.
"She was just so loving and kind," Dearman told CBS News. "And she's caring. She has a great personality."
So even though she had hardly seen Ashley since graduation, Dearman offered to carry her baby for free.
"I needed to fulfill this," Dearman said.
Dearman gave birth to Sophie Leigh Totty on July 29, 2024. Sophie is now about 7 months old and as happy as they come. She is a bubbly bundle of proof that good begets good, and often, miracles come to those who deserve them most.
"It reassures me that there's a tremendous amount of positivity in the world," Spencer said.
"She is so selfless," Ashley said of Dearman. "She's an angel on earth."
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Miami Herald
28 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Could you land a plane in an emergency? 40% of young men say yes, poll finds
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National Geographic
42 minutes ago
- National Geographic
These U.S. national parks and monuments honor the milestones of LGBTQ+ heritage
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Good to know: The Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center, located within the historic Ford Assembly Plant complex at 1414 Harbour Way South, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (These monuments honor LGBTQ history around the world.) Fire Island National Seashore, Ocean Beach, New York Fire Island has been a popular LGBTQ+ travel destination since the 1930s. It's also home to the historic Fire Island Lighthouse built in 1858 and it features a keeper's house, scenic views, and walking/biking paths such as Fire Island Lighthouse Trail, a six-point-five mile out-and-back trail near Bay Shore. Photograph by John Geldermann, Alamy Stock Photo New Yorkers have been drawn for decades to Fire Island, the beachy 30-mile-long barrier island tucked just beneath Long Island. Twenty-six miles of it are now protected as Fire Island National Seashore, easily accessible by a half-hour ferry ride from the mainland. 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Good to know: From mid-May to mid-October, visitors most commonly access Fire Island by ferry from the Long Island towns of Bay Shore, Sayville, or Patchogue, all reachable by car or the Long Island Railroad. (How historians are documenting the lives of transgender people.) Frances Perkins National Monument, Newcastle, Maine Her name might not be widely known, but all working Americans owe Frances Perkins a debt of gratitude. As Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor and the first woman to ever serve in a presidential cabinet, Perkins was instrumental in developing Social Security and forging federal relationships with labor unions. Perkins was one of only two Roosevelt cabinet members to serve for his entire 1933-1945 presidency, making her the longest-serving U.S. Labor Secretary in history. Established as a national monument in 2024—one of the newest in the National Park Service system—the Frances Perkins Homestead in Newcastle, Maine had been in the Perkins family since the mid-18th century. It now encompasses the Frances Perkins Center, dedicated to highlighting Perkins' achievements. 'Perkins was the most effective social progressive in American history, responsible for crafting workplace safety laws that are universal today,' says Kirstin Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal, the definitive Perkins biography, 'and as the primary architect of the Social Security program, which has provided an economic bedrock for generations of Americans.' Downey says Perkins' complex personal life included a marriage to a man and a series of intense relationships with women who shared her progressive ideals. 'She was probably the first [cabinet member] to live openly with a person of the same sex, Mary Harriman Rumsey,' Downey adds. 'She was supportive and encouraging of same-sex relationships, which she viewed as marriages.' Good to know: Accessible only by car, the Frances Perkins National Monument is located at 478 River Road. The Brick House residence remains closed for restorations during 2025, but from June 19 to September 28, the Welcome Center and Homestead Barn will be open Thursday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The grounds are open daily from sunrise to sunset. Dan Allen is a Los Angeles-based writer focusing on travel, culture and queer history. Follow him on Instagram @danquests.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
American slavery wasn't just a white man's business − white women profited, too
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Trevon Logan, The Ohio State University (THE CONVERSATION) As the United States continues to confront the realities and legacy of slavery, Americans continue to challenge myths about the country's history. One enduring myth is that slavery was a largely male endeavor — that, for the most part, the buying, selling, trading and profiting from enslavement were carried out by white men alone. While white women certainly interacted with enslaved people in household management and day-to-day tasks, historians once argued that they weren't active owners and had very limited involvement in transactions. This was once widely believed to be a reason why Southern white women supported the institution – they were assumed to be blind to its darker side. As an expert in the economic history of slavery, I know the story is far more complex. In fact, slavery was unique in economically empowering women. It was, in essence, an early feminist institution – but exclusively for white women. A lasting myth The myth that women didn't profit from slavery has endured for several reasons. First, before the American Civil War, married women generally owned nothing of their own. The legal institution of coverture made the property a woman brought into her marriage into the property of her husband. This also meant that if a husband was in debt, a creditor could claim the wife's property for payment. In addition, there are very few surviving records that show Southern white women discussing the business of slavery. And finally, in cases where women were owners of enslaved people – say, through the death of a husband – they often used agents or male relatives to handle their affairs. Added together, there's very little to suggest that white women were deeply involved in the slavery business. Researchers have started to challenge this view by moving beyond the traditional archival sources. The innovative historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers has documented how regularly white women were seen in all aspects of American enslavement. Her most compelling evidence comes from interviews with the formerly enslaved people themselves, who noted who they were owned by and explained how belonging to the 'misses' affected every aspect of their life. The 'white feminism' of American slavery Historians have also started grappling with the ways American slavery was uniquely gender-egalitarian – at least for white women. While Northern women were trapped in coverture, Southern states were bypassing coverture specifically for the purpose of giving married women rights to own enslaved people. The earliest such act passed in the United States was the Mississippi Married Women's Property Law of 1839. This law explicitly awarded married white women ownership status over enslaved individuals. Slavery was the driver of this change: Four of the five sections of the act refer only to property in enslaved people. Similar acts were passed by other Southern states in the antebellum era to shield married women from responsibility of their husband's debts and also to allow women to independently accumulate wealth during marriage. Of course, laws on the books may not reflect how people actually behaved. But new research shows that white women were very involved in the business of slavery. In states where enslaved people were titled property – like a house or car today – sales were recorded with names of buyers, sellers and the names of the enslaved people in the transaction. White women in states where legislation formally protected their property rights to enslaved property were much more likely to be active in the market. Further analysis of these records shows that white women were involved in nearly a third of all transactions, buying and selling in equal proportion. White women were especially likely to buy and sell enslaved women, making up nearly 40% of the people doing the buying and selling. Enslaved women were especially economically valuable because if someone owned an enslaved women, they automatically became the owner of all of her children. For slave owners, owning an enslaved woman was an intergenerational wealth-building activity. A historical irony We are left to confront a deep irony in American history. Slavery gave white women in the South significantly more economic independence than those in the North, and they used this freedom with remarkable regularity. Women in slave states had legal rights to property that was half of the wealth in the southern United States at the time. Women in the North could only dream of such economic independence. While historians once claimed that white women supported the Confederacy because they were blind to the reality of slavery, researchers now know that they could have been motivated by the same economic impulses as their husbands. Slavery was actually a more gender-egalitarian institution than other forms of property or wealth accumulation, so it's not surprising that white women would have a vested interest in it.
