Many thanks to Renate Yarborough Sanders for bringing to my attention to “Early African American Registered Nurses in NC,” http://nursinghistory.appstate.edu/biographies/african-american-registered-nurses-nc-1903-1935. The page lists all known African-American nurses in the state, including my grandmother’s paternal aunt Henrietta Colvert and three other relatives.

The number presumably refers to the nurse’s license and the date to the date she was certified or registered. Henrietta Colvert was from Statesville, not Wilson, but moved to that eastern town by the early 1920s. I knew she trained at Saint Agnes, but was not aware that she also trained at Good Samaritan, a large African-American hospital in Charlotte.

#7794. Diana Ada Adams Artis. Wilson NC. October 13. Saint Agnes Hospital. 1926.

Diana Adams Artis was born in 1891 in Brooks County, Georgia. She married Columbus E. Artis, son of Adam T. and Amanda Aldridge Artis in 1914 in Washington DC, but later settled in Wilson. I assume that she worked at Mercy Hospital.

#7123. Henrietta Colvert. Wilson NC. April 15. Good Samaritan. 1925.

#11,104. Gwendolyn Sykes. Goldsboro NC. October 26. Lincoln Hospital. 1931.

Gwendolyn Sykes Carney, born 1909 in Goldsboro, North Carolina, was the daughter of William O’Berry Sykes and step-daughter of Gertrude Wynn Sykes.

Vera L. Baker. Graduate 1902, Freedmen’s Hospital, Washington DC. State Hospital, Goldsboro.

Vera L. Baker Holt, born 1879 in Dudley, North Carolina, was the daughter of John F. and Mary Ann Aldridge Baker.