It was recorded that no hospital existed here in Bermuda other than Military Facilities and the Asylum (now know as the Wellness Centre) until the Cottage Hospital opened it’s doors in Happy Valley Road on the 1st. of March 1894. The Hospital was enlarged several times and it had its financial challenges. This service lasted until 1920, when King Edward V11 Memorial Hospital opened it’s doors. Once this took place it left many poor and sick people in the underlying neighbourhoods without ready medical services available to them. Dr. A. G. Pentreath a Doctor of Divinity was disturbed by this and felt something needed to be done. It was he who got the Friendly Societies involved in establishing a Nurses Association and Building the Cottage Hospital. Here nurses could train and go into the homes of the sick and give them much needed attention. Bermuda had qualified nurses since 1855 and they were in the struggle for equality to practice their trade in their own country. There was Eliza Jane Lusher and Catherine Watson. Nurse Watson was the first Bermudian Nurse to work at the Bermuda Asylum which changed it’s name to St. Brendan’s . The first Permanent appointed Matron of the Nursing Home was Laurette I Williams R.N. The daughter of Solomon Smith.

Like Jane Robinson nurse Edna Mae Jones faced some of the same obstacles in the nursing field applying at the only local hospital and being refused because of race practices at the hospital. Born the daughter of Solomon Pearman and Melvina Pearman(Smith) she was the forth of nine siblings born during the era of wooden stoves and very little modern conveniences. Her family lived in Spanish Point in Pembroke and then moved to Pearman’s Hill in Warwick. Her father was a mason by trade and built most of the houses in the area. Edna received her early education at the St. Alban’s primary school on St. John’s road in Pembroke . She attended high school at the Berkeley Institute. She had to leave her studies at Berkeley once she moved to Warwick she was fortunate later to find a job working as a companion to an elderly woman later she resumed her education at Millicent Neverson’s School in Pembroke, she graduated with the Cambridge School Certificate. Like others her greatest desire was to become a nurse and when the Government offered an annual scholarship for Bermudian Nurses to train she applied and was successful. She was one of two persons to receive the scholar ship the other was Juanita Guishard Packwood. There was some objection to these moves by Government but nevertheless in February of 1947 Ms. Jones set of for Britain bound for Southampton England and spent her entire four years of training in London. Several months after returning home she was informed that there was an opening at the Health Department and they were hiring black nurses, she was successful in her application and worked there as a school nurse in the women and children’s clinic. She married in 1956 and had three children. Edna never did go back to KEMH even after it opened its doors to black nurses she had settled in the Health Department and was quite content with her work. Edna lived to see the ripe age of 100years which she celebrated in January of 20 23.

Like wise we note that Gladys and Barbara along with Moria Cann faced many of the same obstacles in their chosen fields and their stories have been recorded.

We must note that for centuries the greater portion of nursing in the Island was carried on by black nurses, including the breast-feeding of other women’s children most from our elite white society. The nursing profession wasn’t the only area where our people were denied learn the difficulty of the first black pharmacist Dr. Olivia Tucker had in trying to apply her trade here in her own country it was so bad she spent most of her life overseas working and receiving honours in several other countries but was never acknowledged in her own home land. (see full stories at the Bermudian Heritage Museum) researched by Joy I aim as long as I can to research and bring this history to you. It is important that we learn of the struggles that got us to this point so we can move on. These are our heroes who endured much for us. The least we can do is learn of them and hold their banners high.

Researched By Joy Wilson-Tucker Historian

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