Pioneering black nurse dies at 101

[flashl]

August 8, 2008
Montgomery Advertiser

HUNTSVILLE -- A black nurse who started the first clinic in Triana and was viewed as a medical savior for many blacks in north Alabama during the segregation era has died at 101.

Jean Dent, a public health nurse who made sure Madison County's black residents got medical care in the segregated 1940s and '50s, died in her sleep at her Huntsville home Wednesday.

...

In 1973, Dent became the first black registered nurse to be named Alabama's nurse of the year by the Alabama State Nurses Association.

Madison County's health department hired the Tuskegee University nursing school graduate in 1946 to train midwives, including some unable to read or write. She later helped bring the first clinic to Triana.

County Health Officer Larry Robey said "Nurse Dent," as she was known to generations of patients and their families, made sure poor people had access to vaccinations and prenatal care.

"It's impossible to say how many lives she saved and how many diseases she prevented, but it's probably in the thousands," Robey said.

[TheOneAndOnly]

1. 101

Wow, can you imagine being so old? I wonder when she was a child if she thought she could have lived to see an African-American contender for the white house?