Griffin ran a drugstore and medical practice, and Mason’s association with him opened doors in both the Anglo and Spanish-speaking communities of Los Angeles. She learned to speak Spanish fluently enough to communicate with her patients — this in a city where Spanish remained the primary language of a significant portion of the population, particularly among the older families who had been residents before American annexation. This linguistic competence was practically valuable and also speaks to something about Mason’s intelligence and adaptability: she was illiterate in English, as formal education had been systematically denied to enslaved people, but she was not intellectually limited.
Her clients came from across the city’s social and economic spectrum. She delivered babies for families of various ethnicities and economic circumstances. This breadth was unusual. Los Angeles in the 1850s and 1860s was not an egalitarian place, and a Black woman practicing midwifery could have been confined to serving primarily the Black community. That she served white and Spanish-speaking Mexican clients as well reflects the demand for her skills and the reputation she built.
She could not read or write, which meant that her practice was conducted entirely through direct knowledge, word of mouth, and the trust that comes from demonstrated competence over time. She had no written records of births attended, no professional correspondence, no business accounts. The economic dimension of her work was managed, presumably, through direct arrangements with clients, with earnings accumulated gradually in whatever form she was paid.
## The 1860 Certificate
Four years after the court ruling, in 1860, Biddy Mason received a certified copy of the document guaranteeing her freedom. This detail is worth pausing on. She had been legally free since January 22, 1856, by the judge’s ruling. But the formal document establishing that freedom in a durable, transferable form was not in her possession for another four years.