A CHARGE TO KEEP BREWSTER HOSPITAL, BREWSTER METHODIST HOSPITAL, BREWSTER HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING, BREWSTER-DUVAL SCHOOL OF NURSING 1901 • 1966 B. J. SESSIONS .'L··· 1 ' Gift of Linda L. Smith A CHARGE TO KEEP BREWSTER HOSPITAL, BREWSTER METHODIST HOSPITAL, BREWSTER HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING, BREWSTER-DUVAL SCHOOL OF NURSING 1901- 1966 B. J. SESSIONS BREWSTER AND COMMUNITY NURSES ALUMNI ASSOCIATION JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 1996 A CHARGE TO KEEP BREWSTER HOSPITAL, BREWSTER METHODIST HOSPITAL, BREWSTER HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING, BREWSTER-DUVAL SCHOOL OF NURSING 1901-1966 B. J. SESSIONS Published by Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association (formerly Brewster Hospital Nurses Alumnae Association) Jacksonville, Florida 1996 Cover Brewster Hospital - Jefferson Street Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-83337 FIRST EDITION - All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this publication in whole or in part in any form or medium. First Print October 1996 Second Print April 1997 Copyright© B. J. Sessions Hettie L. Mills, R.N., B.S. Vera W. Cruse, R.N., B.S.N., M.ED Published by Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association (formerly Brewster Hospital Nurses Alumnae Association) Printed in the United States of America United States Copyright Office Registration February 1996 DEDICATION To the memory of Miss Hattie E. Emerson and the women of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of The Methodist Episcopal Church, later the Woman's Division of Christian Service, Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, after 1939 The Methodist Church and the Woman's Society of Christian Service, Florida Conference of The Methodist Church who were the founders and supporters of Brewster Hospital, Brewster Methodist Hospital, Brewster Hospital School of Nursing and Brewster-Duval School of Nursing which proved to be outstanding institutions dedicated to the training of young Negro women as nurses and designed to give good medical treatment and nursing care to the Negro population in the Jacksonville community and surrounding areas. Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association (formerly Brewster Hospital Nurses Alumnae Association) PREFACE 0 Brewster House of Healing Where love doth conquer ill We yield our hearts devotion Thy vision to fulfill Wherever duty calls us If need be far or near To Brewster lessons loyal We'll comfort, heal, and cheer. Brewster. Brewster, be a cheering light, Glowing, gleaming, beautiful, and bright Like a beacon burning in the night Glowing, gleaming, beautiful and bright. A great loss was felt by the Black community in Jacksonville when Brewster Hospital School of Nursing and Brewster-Duval School of Nursing closed. The closing of the schools was followed by the phasing out of Brewster Methodist Hopspital, the only private hospital for Negroes in Jacksonville, Florida. Intergration contributed to the closing of the schools and the hospital. The Brewster and COintnunity Nurses Almnni Association voted to pre­ setve the history of the schools of nursing and the hospital by recording it in book fotm. The History Comtnittee was appointed. Research, collec­ tion, and categorization of infonnation and materials were initiated. Research for the book has come by word of mouth, personal experiences, written articles, library sources, hospital records, nurses, doctors, patients, citizens and women of The Methodist Church. We want to show how the sick were cared for then and who did the caring from the early nineteen hundreds through the nineteen sixties. The women of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, and the Division of Christian Service who made the school and hospital a reality, we acknowledge gratefully. The city of Jacksonville is applauded for filling the void when Brewster Hospital School of Nursing closed, by organizing Brewster-Duval School of Nursing. Contributors to the book include one who says she is the first baby born in the Brewster Hospital's Monroe Street location and one who was the last patient discharged before the closing of Brewster Methodist Hospital. Our nursing history flows deep and penetrates a vision of students with clean stripped dresses, white starched aprons and bibs enhanced with a stiff white cap punctuated with a black velvet band. The Brewster nurse epitomized excellence in health care, pride and dignity in her appearence and her knowledge of nursing. This book is being written with the hope that generations to come will learn of the health care and nursing available to Negroes after slavery and until integration of the races took place in the 1960's. Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association History Committee Members **Flossie Weaver, R.N.-Gainesville, Florida Aurelia Henley Daigeau, R.N. -Inglewood, California Grace Brown Sykes, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Ruth M. Summerford, R.N. -Brooklyn, New York Pearline Cooper Odom, R.N. -Jackson, Mississippi Gertrude Ivory Bertram, R.N. -Dayton, Ohio Hettie L. Thompson, Mills, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Anita Rice Irving, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida **Annie Brown Sneed, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida **Issac Hatcher Wilcher, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Doretha Ford Brown, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Paradine Alford Smith, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Irene Parrish Dowdell, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida Ly!ln Anderson, R.N. -Jacksonville, Florida Vera Williams Cruse, R.N.-Jacksonville, Florida President, Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association Since beginning our book, some of our sister nurses have gone to meet with the Great Physician. The** indicate the names of the deceased. Hettie L. Thompson Mills FOREWORD Brewster Hospital and Brewster Hospital School of Nursing reflected the love and courage that grow out of a deep and abiding faith in God that in tough times God will stand by those who call upon him for aid. A group of Methodist church women banded together and provided the leadership necessary to establish the hospital and school of nursing which have served as beacons of light in the Jacksonville community, providing top-flight health care and producing some of the finest nurses in the Nursing profession. Students from far and near left their homes and families in pursuit of the fine education that Brewster Hospital School of Nursing offered. Be cause schools of this type were not numerous for young Black women, many traveled great distances to receive nurse training. Arriving from diverse backgrounds these young women soon formed a different type of family which was bonded by love, mutual cooperation, and abiding concern for each other. The Brewster nursing students understood that in many cases all they had to depend on was each other. Thus, the relation­ ships and sisterhood have continued long after graduation and the closing of Brewster Hospital School of Nursing. These graduate nurses went on to become model nurses in traditionally white hospitals and institutions throughout the country once the walls of segregation were breached. The relationships and sisterhood were continued in the formation of the Brewster Hospital Nurses Alumnae Association in 1921. The purpose of our Association is to bring its members together for fellowship, to reminisce, to maintain old friendships and establish new ones, and to leave a legacy for the future by publishing the history of Brewster Hospital, Brewster Hospital School of Nursing and Brewster-Duval School of Nursing. The closing of the Brewster Hospital School of Nursing in 1953 and the closing of the Brewster-Duval School of Nursing in 1963 presented a different challenge to these women to prove that they could continue their existence. They came together realizing that the closing of the school's meant that the alumnae association would gradually come to an end as older alumnae became inactive or passed away and no future classes would graduate to take their places and carry on the legacy. The idea of how to remain an active association first came from one of our past ABOUT THE AUTHOR B. J. Sessions is a native of Jacksonville, Florida. She graduated from Stanton High School, and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Florida A and M University and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Jacksonville University. Mrs. Sessions has been a public high school teacher, a professor of Humanities at Florida Community College at Jacksonvlle, a news writer­ correspondent for the Jacksonville Journal newspaper and a writer of articles and poems for several other publications. She was one of seven writers for JACKSONVILLE'S MINORITY HERITAGE, A Resource Guide for Teachers (1992). She has published two books of poetry: CHARACTER PIECES AND BITS OF ME (1985) and RHYTHMS OF MY HEART (1991), one biography, A WOMAN FROM CHARLESTON - The Life of Amolta Johnston Williams (Mama Williams), (1991), and a book of her speeches and lectures, LET THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH (1995). In 1994 Florida Community College at Jacksonville named a scholarship for Bettye J. Sessions to be presented each year to a FAME participant. FAME (Format for Affecting Minority Enrollment) is a pre-college orientation program for high school students at Florida Community Collegee initiated by Mrs. Sessions in 1984 to encourage Black students to seek information about college and later enroll in a college. In 1994 Malcolm G. A. and Bettye J. Sessions established the Byron Craig Sessions Scholarship in memory of their son to be presented each year to a qualifying young Black male at Florida Community College. presidents Paradine Alford Smith who wanted to enlarge our group by including all members from across the United States. Her idea was indeed a temporary solution to our problem of continued existence including all members from across the United States. In 1974 the Biennial Banquet was held at the Robert Myers Hotel. The Honorable Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskegee, Alabama was speaker for the occasion. At the banquet results of the contest to rename the association was announced by Mrs. Hettie L. Mills. Brewster and Community Nurses Alumni Association was accepted as presented by Mrs.