Mines: Emma Wheeler, Mary Walker and the power of their dreams

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.

Emma Wheeler considered the education of nurses to be an integral part of the hospital's success; her experience at Meharry had taught her that an academic hospital heightened the skills and knowledge of everyone on staff. Dr. Wheeler also founded the Nurses Services Club of Chattanooga, an early "concierge" medical program. Members paid a membership fee which allowed them a two-week stay in the hospital without additional charges and also provided the care of a nurse upon release.

When Dr. John Wheeler died in 1940, Emma chose to continue working in the hospital, serving both as a physician and educator. When her health declined in the 1950s, she closed the hospital even though she continued her medical practice until shortly before her death in 1957. Both John and Emma Wheeler are buried in Chattanooga's Highland Cemetery.

Emma Wheeler's childhood dream had become a reality just as Mary Walker's lifelong dream of literacy would become a reality, at age 116.

Mary Walker, born into slavery in Alabama, was 15 when the Emancipation Proclamation declared that all slaves held in the states in rebellion were free.

While many former slaves headed north for a new beginning, Mary's family chose to stay in the South, aided by the Freedmen's Bureau. Mary would eventually marry twice and have three sons; sharecropping provided little money and even less time for Mary's dream of learning to read and write.

In 1917, Mary moved to Chattanooga, continued working as a domestic helper and became an active member of her church. The years passed and, in 1963 at age 115, Mary Walker enrolled in CALM, the Chattanooga Area Literacy Movement, and by 1964, she had learned to read, write and solve basic math problems. She was certified as the "nation's oldest student" and her retirement center was renamed the Mary Walker Towers.

Each year on her birthday, Chattanoogans gathered to celebrate Mary Walker's life and her accomplishments.

Each party began with her reading from her Bible or a schoolbook to the crowd, reminding every person present that one is never too old to learn to read. While Mary always enjoyed opening presents, the birthday letters from President Lyndon B. Johnson (1966) and President Richard Nixon (1969) may have been most special. When Mary Walker died in 1969 at age 121, she still enjoyed reading. To memorialize her story, the Tennessee Historical Commission dedicated a marker to her memory at 3031 Wilcox Blvd.

Linda Moss Mines is a member of the Tennessee Historical Commission and the regent, Chief John Ross Chapter, NSDAR.