New Brewster Hospital gallery celebrates graduates of Jacksonville's first nursing school for Blacks

Tom Szaroleta, Florida Times-Union
·4 min read

Jacksonville's old Brewster Hospital in LaVilla houses the North Florida Land Trust, but its history is being celebrated with a new first-floor gallery open to the public.

The teaching hospital — the only place in the region where a Black woman could train to become a nurse — opened on Monroe Street in 1901.

The gallery is dedicated to the Brewster Nurses and Community Alumni Association with photos and memorabilia.

At Thursday's opening, Doris Putman, Sylvania Dawson and Lulu Mae Jenkins studied photos of themselves on a wall from more than six decades ago when they were students at Brewster-Duval School of Nursing. A nurse's cape and cap that Putman wore stands in a corner of the gallery.

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Putman, who graduated in 1962, said she was delighted to see the gallery open, even if it isn't in the building she knew as a student nurse. Brewster Hospital moved in the early '30s to a larger facility on North Jefferson, which is where she, Dawson and Jenkins trained. She came to Jacksonville after high school to live with a sister and entered the nursing program a short time later.

"Brewster was a hospital for Black nurses," Putman said. "They wouldn't allow us into the other hospitals."

The building that once housed Brewster Hospital is now home to the North Florida Land Trust. A gallery honoring the nurses who worked at Brewster opened this week on the building's first floor.
The building that once housed Brewster Hospital is now home to the North Florida Land Trust. A gallery honoring the nurses who worked at Brewster opened this week on the building's first floor.

She went on to work at Duval Medical Center, now part of UF Health Jacksonville, where she served in the emergency room, obstetrics department and the medical surgical unit. She later became assistant nursing supervisor for the Duval County Health Department.

A pair of her nursing shoes is on display in the gallery. When a visitor noted that the shoes were in remarkably good shape, Putman wasn't surprised. "Our shoes had to be sparkling every day, she said. "You could see your face in them."

She said she didn't know how many Brewster nurses are still around. The school and hospital closed in 1966.

"There aren't any young Brewster nurses," she said.

At least four of them were at Thursday's dedication, taking photos and swapping stories of the old days.

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Dawson graduated in 1959, living in a dormitory and doing her clinical training at Brewster-Duval Hospital. When she graduated, she found that the options for a Black nurse were limited because white hospitals wouldn't hire her.

"I'm so glad they did this to bring attention to the first hospital that served the Black community," said Dawson, who went on to work as a public health nurse for 31 years.

Jenkins, who graduated in 1960, worked for 32 years after graduating from Brewster, rising to become the first Black supervisor of intensive care at Baptist Health.

Doretha Brown came to Brewster from the Ocala area, following in the footsteps of an older sister. She said it was the only place in Florida where a Black woman could go to nursing school when she graduated in 1953.

A visitor looks over artifacts and articles chronicling some of the history of the Brewster-Duval School of Nursing that is now part of a gallery inside the historic Brewster Hospital building on West Monroe Street in Jacksonville's LaVilla neighborhood. Among those who showed up at Thursday's opening were a number of the African American nurses who trained there in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The building now serves as the headquarters of the North Florida Land Trust.

"It wasn't easy back then," said Brown, who later became a critical care nurse. "Our parents encouraged us to go forward and not become stale and not believe you can't do anything."

A faculty photo on the wall shows that most of the teachers at Brewster were white. Brown said they were first-rate. "Our instructors were wonderful," she said.

Jim McCarthy president of the North Florida Land Trust, said the trust's lease with the city includes a provision for the gallery to celebrate the Brewster nurses. It's a little short on memorabilia at this point, but McCarthy said he hopes nurses and relatives will come forward with other items to add to the gallery.

"Hopefully it will continue to grow now that it's real," he said. "We're trying to encourage people to bring more stuff."

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McCarthy said the gallery is important to preserve the history of the place. "It's hard for me to believe that the only place a Black American could train to be a nurse was here — and it was in my lifetime," he said.

The gallery is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 834 W. Monroe St., but McCarthy said visitors should call (904) 479-1967 first to make an appointment. Admission is free.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville gallery celebrates state's first school for Black nurses