Gwendolyn Atkins & Henrietta Gayles

Two retired African American public health nurses spent a lifetime healing bruises in the community.

For nearly three decades, retired nurses Henrietta Gayles Cunningham and Gwen Atkins walked door to door in Newtown neighborhoods, public housing areas and in migrant camps teaching young mothers about child care, treating childhood diseases, monitoring the health of aging residents and making sure seasonal workers received medical services. They set up a makeshift clinic in the garage of Stephens Funeral Home. “We’d treat infantigo and ring worms. Remember setting up a card table with a white table cloth then immunizing children for polio and small pox?” Atkins asked her former colleague during a visit with Gayles at an Ocala assisted living facility. “That was real public health,” added Gayles, the first African American nurse at the Sarasota County Health Department. The women became extended family members of their patients.

The line between work and play often blurred. Nursing and being on call, accessible and always available was a way of life. It still is for Atkins. Mary Emma Jones, Alease Suarez and Viola Sanders were extremely helpful to the caregivers. “If I had to do it all over again, I would choose public health nursing and I would choose serving my community. That’s what I love more than anything else,” Atkins said.