South Carolina’s Brainiest Negro

PART II 

NOTE: Included in this narrative is an article about Dr. Matilda A. Evans, written on January 10th, 1910, in the State Newspaper of South Carolina and is established as public domain due to longevity. 

SOUTH CAROLINA’S 

BRAINIEST NEGRO 

Dr. Matilda A. Evans, 

a Black Woman, 

Who Has Saved Hundreds of Lives and 

Has Educated Many Trained Nurses 

 

 “If Columbia physicians were asked to name the South Carolina negro who had been of most service to the colored race, his answer would undoubtedly be “Dr. Evans of the Taylor Lane Hospital.”  The doctors of this city, since they are constantly called into consultation and to assist in operations at the Taylor Lane negro hospital, have had the opportunity of knowing Matilda A. Evans, MD and seeing the enormous amount of work she does among her people, work which brings her not one penny of personal remuneration. 

  Matilda A. Evans is a remarkable woman.  When only eight years old she determined to make the practice of medicine her lifework and toward this end bent all her wonderful energy.  While living in Aiken, her hometown, she attracted the attention of Miss Martha Schofield, a Northern woman who was the founder of the Schofield colored normal and industrial school, and institution which has done much toward uplifting the negro race.  It was the financial aid of Miss Schofield and two other philanthropic Northern women, Miss Sarah F. Corleis and Miss Susan Brinton, all of Philadelphia, which enabled Matilda Evans after finishing at the Schofield school to go to the North and complete her academic education.  She attended a school in Philadelphia for some time and then determined, against the wishes of her white friends, to take a college course.  She selected Oberlin college in Ohio as an institution at which it would be possible for a negro girl to get an education by working for it.  She left Philadelphia with only $65 in cash as, in the opinion of her friends, she already had enough education to take a course in medicine and they did not feel able to assist her further. 

  Matilda Evans won a competitive scholarship after staying three months at Oberlin, which is, like most of the young Western colleges, well endowed, and this scholarship helped materially toward enabling her to get a degree. While at Oberlin, she worked as a waitress in the college dining hall and canned fruit in the summertime for the residents of the little college town.  She was finally graduated in 1892 with high honors. 

  A call came from the Freedman’s board for a negro woman to do missionary work among the negroes of Augusta, GA, and Matilda Evans was selected by the Oberlin authorities to fill the position.  She worked in Augusta as the board’s special missionary for one year, and at the end of that time went back to Aiken to teach in the Schofield school, as she was offered a better salary and could save more money toward her medical education.  Finally, in 1893, having saved enough money, Matilda Evans went to the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, from which she received at the end of four years’ work, the degree of Medical Doctor.   

PLANNED TO BE A MISSIONARY 

  Dr. Evans originally intended to go to Africa as a medical missionary. The negroes of Columbia have every reason to be thankful that she realized that there was a great field for her missionary and administrative work in the South and changed her plan of going to Africa. 

   She came to Columbia in 1897 and opened a little office at 1014 Lady Street.  She got some practice among the colored residents of this city from the very first.  She organized a class of colored girls and lectured to them three times a week in addition to her other duties. 

Merely by accident, Dr. Evans was called upon to attend a white woman who was suffering from a distressing complaint.  The patient recovered under her treatment and later called the negro woman doctor in again when her little girl was taken desperately ill. The child, too, quickly recovered and the success of these two first cases helped Dr. Evans to a considerable practice among the white women and children of Columbia.  For a long time, she was the only woman doctor in the city and was often called to attend white patients. Her practice among the respectable white residents of the city and county is still considerable and, in fact, enables her to defray the expenses of the Taylor Lane hospital.   

  After practicing in Columbia for four years, Dr. Evans recognized the need for a negro hospital in this city and the establishment of the Taylor Lane hospital was made possible by small donations from Columbians and the Northern friends of Dr. Evans.  The success of the venture from the patient’s standpoint was immediate.  

A MAKESHIFT HOSPITAL 

   A rambling old Southern mansion, a two-story dilapidated building, was rented out in Waverly at the cost of $30 a month.  The upper floor was fitted up into three wards and an operating room, while the lower floor was given over to offices, dining room, and nurses quarters. The house was partially furnished with the money which had been raised through subscriptions.  The furniture is in the main rather rough.  Part of it was indeed made by Dr. Evans herself.  The old building is not in the best state of repair.  The roof leaks and the windows rattle badly.  The stairs are steep and the light in the operating room is very poor.  A new building is badly needed, and steps are now being taken to provide it.  

   The Taylor Lane Hospital is also a training school for negro nurses.  Dr. Evans has accommodation for only eight of these and the demand for more room is imperative.  The nurses come from negro industrial schools all over the South.  Their work is hard and their training, along the latest scientific lines, is as thorough as it is possible to make it.  The nurse graduates of the Taylor Lane have no difficulty in obtaining work in the best families of the State.  In fact, the demand for these negroes trained nurses far exceeds the supply.  Dr. Evans also has under her two young Negro internes, graduates of the Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Evans was recently asked if it were not true that most of the negro nurses graduated by the Taylor Lane found their work in the North.  She answered that they all stay in the South, adding that the North did not need them while the South did.   

A SAD CONDITION 

  There are only 25 beds at the hospital, and these are always kept filled with patients.  It has frequently been necessary to put patients on the floor and on improvised cots as the demand upon the hospital greatly exceeds its capacity.  Negro patients, without a penny in their pockets come for treatment to the Taylor Lane hospital from a radius of 130 miles around Columbia. Dr. Evans said that only recently three negro women who live at a considerable distance had presented themselves for treatment, offering in payment, respectively, a half dozen of eggs, a basket of peas, and a small bag of home raised peanuts.  

   The women could not be turned away as they had no money with which to get home and would not be able to earn any until after they had been treated.  Out at the hospital now there is a small girl who fell the other day and injured her spinal column.  She has since been in the hospital, strapped to a board, and will receive free treatment until she recovers completely, which will be a matter of several weeks.  

  Dr. Evans’ charity-patients number many, many hundreds.  They include worthy negroes who are simply unable to pay and negro desperadoes and bums who spend all their money at craps and for whiskey.  Dr. Evans’ collections for November 1907, amounted to only $30 and December of the same year she did not receive one cent from her negro practice and actually (the services) her destitute patients used.  Her practice among the white people enables her to keep alive and to run the hospital while she ministers to the negro sick who cannot pay. Her carefully kept personal account books show that every statement made above is true.  Since coming to Columbia, she has answered thousands of calls which netted her not one cent.  Dr. Evans spent this Christmas just past picking out bird shot, sewing up cut heads, and otherwise repairing the damage done at “hot suppers.” She stated that she had spent the last 12 Christmases doing the same thing. 

   Dr. Evans said that out of 50 patients taken into the hospital an average of 15 were put on the record as free.  Of the remaining 35 who promised to pay, half would pay the fee of one dollar a day which is charged, and the other half would merely pay part or else nothing at all.  It is easy to see that at this rate the Taylor Lane hospital is not a paying venture, for, even if every patient payed the required fee, the sum thus received would be inadequate for the support of the hospital.  The hospital records are neatly kept.  The nurses are taught to do this important part of the work, and the Taylor Lane hospital records, which are very full, make interesting reading.  In addition to being taught to keep systematic records, the nurses are required to do housework and cooking, besides waiting on the patients, and assisting at operations.  

THERE IS NO HELP 

   A mistaken idea that the Taylor Lane hospital is supported by Northern philanthropists has gotten abroad.  The hospital has two friends in the North, Miss Helen C. Jenks and Miss Hanna Fox, both of Philadelphia, who annually donate $25 and $30 respectively, toward maintaining the hospital.  This, Dr. Evans declares, is the only aid the hospital gets from the North. 

   The question naturally arises as to how the hospital is able to keep open its doors and to care for its host of negro patients.  Dr. Evans’ private practice, principally what little she does among white patients who pay well, makes it possible to run the Taylor Lane hospital. Four years ago, she rented her home in the city and moved to the hospital as she would have more money to defray its expenses and could keep in closer touch with the patients.  Since moving to the hospital, Dr. Evans says she has not saved a dollar.  Every cent she has made has gone to pay the expenses of the hospital and to buy medicine for the patients.  In addition to what Dr. Evans’ private practice brings in, a small sum is earned by the nurses, who do undergraduate work in the city, to aid in defraying the expenses of the hospital. 

 Another source of revenue is the Taylor Lane poultry farm which is run on the hospital grounds by Dr. Evans.  Two hundred hens are kept, and they earn about $1,000 a year to help care for the negro sick.  Dr. Evans also runs a truck farm on three acres of land behind the hospital.  This is also profitable.  The railroads send their injured negro employees to the Taylor Lane hospital for treatment and pay the hospital well for its services.  A small dairy on the grounds furnishes milk and butter for the sick.  The hospital has not one cent of the endowment and no means of financial support outside of those mentioned above.  With only the slender income gained from these sources, and of course, small private contributions which are made from time to time, and which are always welcomed, the hospital cares for hundreds of negro patients each year who otherwise might suffer for want of medical attention.  

   Money to carry on the work at the Taylor Lane hospital is always needed.  The hospital has never in the eight years of its existence cleared a dollar.  The only salaried employee is the cook who receives one dollar a week for her services.  Dr. Evans herself, of course, gets no pay for her work, and her private practice is the hospital’s main source of income.  A short time ago Dr. Evans said, in speaking of the financial end of the hospital: “I received a fee of $40 the other day from one of my white patients.  With this I can pay this month’s rent on the hospital building and the insurance on the furniture.” And so, without any hope of personal gain, Dr. Evans practices her profession among her race.  

NEW BUILDING NEEDED 

   It will be impossible for the Taylor Lane hospital to continue to occupy its present cramped and inadequate quarters much longer.  A new building must be had, and to this end, Dr. Evans is bending all her energy.  In fact, a lot has already been secured and it is hoped that it will soon be possible to begin the erection of a building, which with its equipment, will cost $40,000.  Dr Evans leaves for the North early in the spring on an extended “begging” tour.  Several thousand dollars have already been raised and it is earnestly to be hoped that the remainder can be secured before much more time elapses; for the Taylor Lane hospital has done an inestimable amount of good among the negro people of this section and has also trained a number of negro nurses for professional service and usefulness.  More than 4,000 patients have been cared for since the hospital was established eight years ago.  The treasurer of the Taylor Lane building fund is George B. Miller of 706 Delaware Avenue, Wilmington, Delaware.  He has in his care the money that has already been collected for the badly needed new building.  

   As for Dr. Matilda A. Evans, her devotion to her work and her earnest Christian character are both unquestioned.  Her ability as a surgeon and a physician is recognized by the best men in the profession here in Columbia.  

 She has performed successfully with poor equipment, a number of abdominal operations that are really remarkable.  The following recommendation from one of the best and most widely known surgeons in South Carolina speaks for itself: “I have known Dr. Evans for several years, being closely identified with the work done at the Taylor Lane hospital for colored people, of which she is superintendent.  I know of my own knowledge that the good accomplished for needy negro people not only of Columbia, but throughout the entire State, has been incalculable, from a verbal statement, to give an expression of the great amount of good that has been accomplished or how great the need of money. It is my honest belief that Columbia furnishes a field for such work unexcelled anywhere.  Dr. M.A. Evans has shown signal ability as superintendent of such an institution.  There is in connection with the hospital a training school for nurses, which as likewise been productive of much good by furnishing employment and means of livelihood for many deserving negro girls.” 

A STRIKING STORY 

   Dr. Evans’ career and life work forms a striking instance of unselfish self-sacrifice.  When she came to Columbia 12 years ago, she was the only woman physician in the state.  Her practice grew and grew rapidly.  There was every indication that in time she would become independent.  In fact, wealthy for one of her race.  But she gave up her bright projects to minister to the injured and sick negroes of Columbia on a large scale.  Her work at the Taylor Lane hospital she calls her life work, and for it she has already sacrificed her home and her chance for personal remuneration from her profession. 

   Dr. Evans has done and is doing an immense amount of good among the negro people.  She agrees with Booker Washington and other prominent negroes that the South is the place for the negro and that he must stay here if he is to prosper.  Matilda Evans, MD is an unusually intelligent negro.  She is unaffected and has not her own personal interest, but the interests of her race at heart.  The Taylor Lane Hospital, as it now stands, is a monument to her industry and energy.