The Freeman (Indianapolis, Ind.), 12 June 1915.
Whaaatttt? In 1915, Dr. Joseph H. Ward was planning to leave Indianapolis to come home to Wilson to practice medicine??? He went so far as to resign his leadership position with the Y.M.C.A. — what changed his mind?
Richmond Times Dispatch, 29 June 1951.
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In the 1900 census of Highland, Orange County, New York: James B. Darden, 18, waiter [at hotel.]
In the 1910 census of Opelika, Lee County, Alabama: physician John Darden, 34; wife Jean, 26; and brother James B. Darden, 26, drugstore clerk.
In 1918, James Benjamin Darden registered for the World War II draft in Petersburg, Virginia. Per his registration card, he was born 17 July 1881; lived at 516 Byrne, Petersburg; was an M.D.; and his nearest relative was Lillian Darden.
In the 1920 census of Petersburg, Virginia: physician James B. Darden, 38, and wife Nannie, 32.
In the 1930 census of Petersburg, Virginia: at 516 Byrne, physician James B. Darden, 46; wife Lillian, 42; and mother-in-law Sarah Allen, 75.
In the 1940 census of Petersburg, Virginia: medical doctor James Darden, 56, and wife Lillian, 52.
In 1942, James Benjamin Darden registered for the World War II draft in Petersburg, Virginia. Per his registration card, he was born 17 July 1882 in Wilson, N.C.; lived at 516 Byrne, Petersburg; was a doctor at 122 South Avenue; and his contact was Lillian A. Darden.
In the 1950 census of Petersburg, Virginia: doctor James B. Darden, 67, and wife Lillian A., 60.
Lillian A. Darden died 11 February 1983 in Petersburg, Virginia. Per her death certificate, she was born 8 January 1887 to Charles Allen and Sarah Cole in Tennessee and was a retired music teacher.
Benjamin Woodard was not the only practitioner in town.
The 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County, lists Joseph Smith, 49, widower, as a “doctor of roots.”
I recently was gifted a copy of Phoebe Ann Pollitt’s African American Hospitals in North Carolina: 39 Institutional Histories, 1880-1967. Reading the Wilson entry made me realize I have not adequately set out here the ownership timeline of the hospital commonly thought of just as “Mercy Hospital.” What we think of as a single institution actually comprised three separate hospitals that operated on the same site and mostly in the same building.
(1) In 1905, Dr. Frank S. Hargrave opened a private hospital in a 16-room house on East Green Street.
(2) In 1913, Dr. Hargrave partnered with Samuel H. Vick and J.D. Reid to establish Wilson Hospital and Tubercular Home in a brand-new, purpose-built brick building on the site of the old wooden house. In 1915, Wilson’s Board of Aldermen voted to contribute a small monthly amount to the hospital’s budget. The hospital — the tubercular home was never built — struggled financially and went into foreclosure in 1924. Pollitt’s timeline and facts are a little off concerning this phase of the hospital’s history. She says Commercial Bank failed in the late 1920s “due to the nationwide financial hardships of the Great Depression” and that Dr. Hargrave left Wilson for New Jersey in 1924 after losing the hospital. Hargrave did leave Wilson in 1924, but Commercial Bank did not fail until J.D. Reid and Henry S. Stanback severely and criminally mismanaged its deposits in 1929. Contemporary news accounts say the hospital J.D. Reid had kept the bank afloat with loan from the Commercial Bank secured by the hospital itself. When the bank collapsed, it dragged the hospital down, too.
(3) In 1930, white businessman Wade H. Gardner bought the hospital at auction, and a group of white doctors and businessmen, plus William Hines, set themselves up as trustees and administrators. They renamed it Mercy and commenced operation with city, county, and philanthropic support. Though the hospital’s ownership shifted a couple of times between private and public owners to render it eligible for major grants, Mercy operated continuously until 1964, when it was shuttered for good with the opening of a federally-funded, integrated hospital, Wilson Memorial. (I was born there just a few months before it closed.)
This occupation description in the 1930 census of Wilson caught my eye:
“Doctor woman”?
The full entry: at 1104 Wainwright Avenue, owned and valued at $1000, widow Etta Plumer, 60, doctor woman, and son Samie, 40, oil mill laborer; Lee Palmer, 25, guano plant laborer, and wife Mary, 24, cook.
Other records show that Plummer was a midwife, but this label suggests a broader medical expertise.
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In the 1900 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farmer William Plummer, 53; wife Etta, 34; and children William Ann, 18, and Samuel, 14.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: city laborer William Plummer, 69, and wife Etta, 50.
In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Plummer Etta (c) midwife h 1104 Wainwright Av
William Henry Plummer died 23 February 1925 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 70 years old; was born in Warren County, N.C., to Mary Plummer; was married to Etta Plummer; worked as a common laborer; and lived at 1104 Wainwright. He was buried in “Rountrees Cemetery,” which could have been Rountree or Vick Cemetery.
In the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Plummer Etta midwife h 1104 Wainwright Av
Etta Plummer died 6 September 1939 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 74 years old; was born in Nash County, N.C., to Sam and Pennie Hilliard; was the widow of William Plummer; lived at 1104 Wainwright; and worked as a midwife. Samuel Plummer was informant. She was buried in Wilson, most likely in Vick Cemetery.
This past September, the Department of Veterans Affairs posthumously awarded an Exceptional Service Award to Wilson native Dr. Joseph H. Ward for his leadership of the V.A.’s first all-Black hospital “during an era of severe discrimination and racial hostility.”
To learn more about Dr. Ward and Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital, see this recent NPR piece, A Century Ago, Black WWI Vets Demanded Better Care. They Got Their Own Hospital, and this National Archives blogpost, The Trials and Triumphs of Dr. Joseph H. Ward.
Dr. Joseph H. Ward stands at center in the first row in the photograph taken of the V.A. Hospital’s ground-breaking all-Black medical staff.
News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 21 July 1931.
I found this odd article while searching for a digital version of the article re Rev. J.P. Stanley’s funeral. It purports to highlight Col. Joseph H. Ward, but mangles the facts of his life — starting with his name, which was not John D.
As a reminder, Joseph H. Ward’s mother, Mittie R. Ward, was the daughter of Dr. David G.W. Ward and Sarah Ward, an enslaved woman. So, Mittie was born enslaved, but her son Joseph, who was not born until 1872, decidedly was not. And he didn’t “take” his own surname, it was given to him by his mother at birth. Misinformation aside, what caught my eye here was Dr. Ward’s visit to his half-uncle, Judge David L. Ward — who was an unvarnished white supremacist in the mold of Josephus Daniels, Charles B. Aycock, and Furnifold M. Simmons.
Virginia Pou Doughton Papers, housed in the North Carolina State Archives’ Private Collections, contain dozens of letters written by an African-American man named Johnnie Farmer, who had worked as butler and cook for Doughton’s grandparents, Floyd S. and Elizabeth Barnes Davis. (Farmer’s mother, Bettie Farmer, and sister, Emma Farmer, also worked as servants for the Davises.) Farmer, a World War I veteran, had been hospitalized at the Veterans Administration hospital in Kecoughtan, Virginia, apparently for complications from diabetes.
Farmer’s letters make reference to several Davis family members, including Miss Lizzie (Elizabeth B. Davis), Miss Helen (Virginia Doughton’s aunt by marriage, Helen Patterson Davis), Mr. Frank (her uncle, Frank Barnes Davis), and Sammy Pou (Doughton, herself, by a childhood nickname.) Miss Harris was likely Alice Barnes Wright Harriss, who lived next door to the Davises at 701 West Nash Street and was Lizzie B. Davis’ sister.
In this letter to an unknown recipient, written in October 1941, Farmer speaks briefly of how he is faring, mentions two unknown men, and expresses sympathy for “Teance,” who has to wear glasses. He finishes by giving, I think, instructions for care of a boxwood.
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Wed Oct 8 1941
Rec your Letter Monday after noon and sunday is the First day the Doc would Let me set up Eanny and then in bed at that saw you all can see that i have time to see them about Enny Like that it was some, Whair around 11 oclock in i got hear did not see but one Doc and one nuce they ak a Lots of Qustions and gave me some cind of a Little white Pill and when I went to bed I did not know nothen untill the next morning I am in the man part of the hospital and Howard and John B. is just a bout a half mile from me and you see it is hard to see them so glad you all wend dow to hope she is getting along all Right and the same thing We are only arlied to see out three Letters a week unless you have your own stampe and then you can seend as miney as you wont so sorry teance has got to wair glases hope she wont have to wair then all the time I am still in bid yet so I am going to write you all Just as often as I can my ankles and Leges has gone down still they wont Let me be op Except in bet the stuff I pout the Box Wood is in the gareige is true and you dont have mix Enny thing with it tharr is a Little sprain in the aket but it may not be Long Enuff to do Enny good so Just Pour the stuff in a Pan and take that bug Brush and Just sprankly it on Like that
Hospital at Veterans’ Administration Facility, Hampton, Va., 1940s. “C.T. Art-Colortone” Postcard, Curt Teich Company.
Wilson Daily Times, 6 August 1940.
“… [I]t was extremely unusual for a negro to have gall stones at all, let alone so large a number”?
