Georgia Magazine – Time to shine: Active alumnus coaches individuals and delivers motivational speeches

Click HERE to read the complete governor’s proclamation.

Henrietta Stanley (S.R) Dull is perhaps best known for writing the popular cookbook “Southern Cooking,” which sold nationally and in seven foreign countries, Henrietta Dull became an authority on Southern cooking after she entered the catering field as a widow with five children. Her catering for Atlanta society and the cooking schools she facilitated led to her become a weekly contributor to the Food Page of The Atlanta Journal for 20 years. She headed the first Home Service Department for a utility in the South and the second in the nation for Atlanta Gas Light Company and was instrumental in establishing a home economics curriculum in the Atlanta School System in cooperation with Nettie Sargent, the Principal of Girls High School of Atlanta. Despite her busy schedule, Dull was involved in many community organizations, such as the First Baptist Church, the Quota Club, Women’s Division of the Decatur Chamber of Commerce, the Atlanta Woman’s Club, Service Star Legion, O.C. Horne Chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Atlanta Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution. Additionally, she served as a hostess at the Peachtree Street Soldiers’ Recreation House during World War I, where “Mother Dull,” as she was affectionately known, cooked for more than 50,000 soldiers.

Mary Gregory Jewett graduated from the University of Georgia in 1930 and became an outstanding leader in historic preservation in Georgia. She was the first President of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, which she helped to found in 1973. She was a journalist, historian, and public official. She was appointed state historic preservation officer by Governor Lester Maddox, was the first Georgian to be on the Council of the American Association of State and Local History, was a representative of the Southeast on the Council of State Preservation Officers and held membership on the Board of Governors of the Georgia Agricultural Development Board and the Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission, among many of her other appointments and accomplishments.

Lollie Belle Moore Wylie is a recognizable mentor for Georgia women. Her story is one of turning personal loss and adversity into inspiration. She is remembered for her creative contributions through journalism, poetry, music, and environmental projects. Her roles both as a mother and a professional writer reflect her belief that a woman can make a difference in her community by giving something back. Annie Hornady Howard in her book entitled “Georgia Homes and Notable Georgians” said: “Her interest in women and their work was always uppermost in her heart and she was never too busy to lend a helping hand to some beginner in the field of Journalism.”

Emily Tubman’s life extended from the time of George Washington through the Civil War and Reconstruction. She was born as Emily Harvie Thomas in 1794 in Hanover County, Virginia. Her parents moved to Kentucky when she was very young; she grew up in Frankfort. At the age of 24, she came to Augusta for a visit and met Richard Tubman, a wealthy planter, whom she soon married. Tubman was 28 years her senior, but they were well suited to each other, as neither really belonged to the sedate, slave-owning class. He was an Englishman who made his fortune exporting cotton, tobacco, and indigo. She had grown up on the frontier. When Richard Tubman died 18 years later, Emily found herself responsible for a large estate. She summoned her brother, a graduate of Yale, to train her in the basics of civil law.

Richard had left a gift of $10,000 to the University of Georgia, on the condition that the legislature permit his estate to free all of his slaves. The legislature refused to accept this gift that would allow freed slaves to live in Georgia. With that option gone Emily began to investigate places where she might help her slaves settle. In the end, she offered them the choice to go and settle in Liberia in West Africa, or continue to work for her in Georgia. Roughly a third chose to go to Liberia, and Emily equipped them fully, arranging their travel, and continuing to support them for a time. In Liberia they took the name of Tubman, and their farming community, “Tubman Hill,” prospered.

Emily Tubman was shrewd enough to realize that the Southern one-crop economy was headed for calamity, so she invested wisely in railroads and industries and more than doubled the value of her late husband’s estate. Unlike most Confederate fortunes, hers survived the Civil War. In using her wealth she was guided by the belief that she was only its steward, not its owner. She kept no records of her charitable giving, saying it was strictly between her and the Lord. Her faith was simple, direct, and practical. Impatient with the complexities of doctrine and church order in mainstream churches, she was attracted to a young denomination, the Disciples of Christ. She became one of its principal benefactors. Its founder, Alexander Campbell, was a frequent guest in her home. She gave generously to help with the building of, and the pastoral expenses of the denomination’s churches in Augusta, Atlanta, Savannah, Athens, and Sandersville, as well as sites in Kentucky. She also contributed generously to the building and endowment of Christian colleges in Kentucky and the Midwest. In Augusta, she provided a number of low-cost housing units for widows and the elderly. She gave land to the ex-slaves who had stayed with her, and equipped them to be independent farmers.

Emily Tubman also founded the first public high school for girls in Augusta, the Tubman School. Its aims went far beyond simply training girls to be household servants. It offered college-preparatory courses in the Arts and Sciences. Today, the Tubman Middle School in Augusta still bears her name.

Emily Thomas Tubman died in 1885 at the age of 91 after a life distinguished by achievement and service. The scope of her giving and her foresight have had a far-reaching effect. Marking the 200th anniversary of her birth, the City of Augusta this year unveiled a statue of her at the corner of Greene and McIntosh Streets in front of the First Christian Church.

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Richmond County Historical Society
Richmond Hill, GA 31324
(912) 756-3518

Mary Francis Hill was born August 15, 1900 in Baker County, Georgia. She was the youngest child and the surviving twin of Martha, who died at childbirth. Mary was raised by her aunts and uncles after losing her parents at a young age, and her value of willingness to help others was shaped by this act. Mary had little, if any, formal education, but in a Georgia where women were often treated as less than equal citizens, and where, for poor and black women, the struggle was compounded, she became an influential advocate for community health.

Mary married carpenter Ashley Coley and the family moved to Albany in 1930. It was after this move that she became interested in midwifery and was trained by Alabama midwife Onnie Lee Logan in the apprentice tradition. For over 30 years Mary delivered more than 3,000 babies in Dougherty, Lee, Mitchell and Worth counties. She was known for her tireless work ethic and her willingness to serve both black and white mothers in the segregated south.

Her care of new families extended beyond the delivery of the baby. She would visit for days after the birth to help in cooking, cleaning and washing clothes, and she organized the registration of forms and certificates to be filed with the county health office. She believed her work was a spiritual calling, and she let nothing keep her from mothers who needed her, seeing no racial barriers.

Mary Coley was recognized by more than her community for the work she did. In 1952, documentarian George Stoney filmed All My Babies, a movie produced by the Georgia Health Department as an instructional training film. Stoney followed “Miss Mary” for four months, recording the preparation for and delivery of babies in rural conditions in the Albany area, with help from local public health doctors and nurses. The film is not only a portrait of Mary, but also is a historical record of the actual living conditions of her patients.

In 2002 the film was selected by the Library of Congress for placement on the National Film Registry as “a culturally, historically and artistically significant work.” It has been used as a tool for midwife training and as an example of early documentary style filming over the last 58 years.

The Anacostia Smithsonian Museum for African American History and Culture hosted an exhibit in 2005, “Reclaiming Midwives: Pillars of Community Support” which featured Miss Mary among the midwives. The exhibit emphasizes the role of African American midwives at the center of health and social support systems in black communities.

That same year other exhibits opened at the Columbia University School of Nursing as well as the Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Mary Coley was featured in both.

When Mary Coley died in March, 1966 in Albany, she was recognized as a healer, an advocate healthy babies, and a liaison between the healthcare system and her community. She was also hailed as a role model for future generations of women who want to make a difference.

In 2007 George Stoney returned to Georgia to film a reunion of 150 babies delivered by Mary, all grown up with stories of their own. The film is currently in the editing stage. When these people tell the stories of their lives, it will be even more evident that Mary Coley had a profound influence on her community and beyond.

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Bessie Lillian Gordy was born August 15, 1898 to James and Mary Ida Gordy in Richland, Georgia, a town a few miles west of Plains. She was the daughter of a postmaster and a homemaker, and grew up in the rural south where color and race were defining characteristics. She knew at an early age that she wanted to be a nurse and she studied at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, and finished her education at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia in 1923.

After her graduation, Lillian married James Earl Carter, a local businessman from Pains, and raised four children while working as a nurse part time in her community and at the local hospital. She also worked with her husband at Carter’s Warehouse, which specialized in the buying and selling of peanuts and cotton. She used her nursing skills to help her husband’s employees and tended both black and white neighbors who needed medical care. She didn’t see “color” but rather saw humanity, and refused to allow race to be a determining factor in how she treated people.

Lillian’s husband died in 1953. She served as the housemother for the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Auburn University from 1955-1962 and she helped run a nursing home in Blakely, Georgia, but in 1966 she made a major decision. At the age of 68, when many people were retiring from hard work, Lillian joined the Peace Corps and went to Godrej Colony in India, 30 miles from Mumbai. There she nursed in a small clinic treating all illnesses, including leprosy. She turned 70 there before returning home.
Lillian was a busy and important part of her son Jimmy’s political campaigns for state senate, governor and in 1976, President of The United States. She published two books during his presidency, one a collection of letters that she had written her family from India. Her later years were spent at her home outside Plains visiting with family and fishing. When she died at the age of 85 in 1983 in Americus and was buried beside her husband at Lebanon Church Cemetery, more than a city or state grieved. People all over the world who had come under her influence mourned.

Lillian Carter has received many honors for her work during her life. In 1977 she received the Covenant of Peace Award from the Jewish Synagogue Council of America. In 1978 she was awarded the United Nations’ Ceres Medal for being one of the first proponents of civil rights in her community.

In 1980, she was named honorary chair of the Peace Corps National Advisory Council, and in 1986 the Atlanta Regional Office of the Peace Corp created the Lillian Carter Award, given every other year to volunteers over the age of 50 who demonstrate commitment to improving the lives of others.

Emory University established the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing in 2001, in honor of the work she did in India, reflecting the mission “to improve the health of vulnerable people worldwide, through nursing, education, research, practice and policy.”

The mother of a president and a formidable leader in her own right, Lillian Gordy Carter set an example for all women with her determination to make the world a better place. Whether it was by serving as a nurse in the Peace Corps in India, or bridging cultural gaps in rural Georgia, her nursing skills and her compassion endeared her to many.

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