Dr. Emma Wheeler and Mary Walker’s lives had little in common, and yet each woman’s story reminds us of the power of dreams.
If you have driven by 328 E. Eighth St., you might have noticed a bronze Tennessee Historical Commission marker providing a brief history of the Walden Hospital founded by Dr. Emma Rochelle Wheeler.
Emma Rochelle was born in 1882 in Gainesville, Florida, to a prominent African American family; her father was a successful farmer and veterinarian. When she was only 6, a minor medical issue required Emma to visit a white female doctor, and she became fascinated with the idea of becoming a doctor. She completed her undergraduate education at Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, Florida, at the age of 17 and, shortly after graduation, married her professor, Joseph Howard. One year later, Howard died unexpectedly. Emma and her newborn son relocated to Nashville where she enrolled in Walden University’s Meharry Medical College. After graduation in 1905, Emma married Dr. John N. Wheeler and, within weeks, the physicians moved to Chattanooga where they practiced medicine in segregated Chattanooga for the next 10 years.
During the years before the Great War, African Americans who required hospitalization were relegated to the rooms in the basements of existing hospitals. The mortality rate was significantly higher, primarily due to the poor surgical conditions and a lack of adequate medical supplies and equipment. Dr. Wheeler, using funds she had saved, decided to purchase two lots on the corner of East Eighth and Douglas streets and construct a three-story brick hospital. Walden Hospital, dedicated on July 30, 1915, was the first hospital in Chattanooga to be owned, operated and staffed by African Americans and dedicated the medical treatment of African Americans.
The 30-bed hospital was not only innovative and professional in its treatment of patients, but it was a financial success for the Wheelers. Both practiced medicine; Emma handled the business aspects of the hospital. Within three years, she had paid off the construction debt and grown the staff to include 17 physicians and surgeons and a nursing staff.