Interview ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON APRIL 24, 2002

Interview

with

ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON

APRIL 24, 2002

by Kathleen Kearns

Transcribed by Kathleen Kearns

The Southern Oral History Program University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Transcript and tape on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection

Louis Round Wilson Library

Citation of this interview should be as follows: "Southern Oral History Program,

in the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department, Wilson Library,

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"

Copyright © 2005 The University of North Carolina

Interview number R-0334 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

WAKE MED HISTORY PROJECT ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON

APRIL 24, 2002 [corrected with input from Dr. Wilkerson 7/4/02; any material on tape that is not part of

this transcript may not be quoted]

START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A

KATHLEEN KEARNS: This is Kathleen Kearns speaking. It's April 24, 2002.

I'm in the home of Dr. Annie Louise Wilkerson. Would you mind just saying your name

and we'll test the tape?

ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON: Dr. Annie Louise Wilkerson.

KK: We'll just test it and make sure it's working.

[Tape turned off and on again.]

KK: OK. Could we start with your own personal background, a little bit? Could

you tell me when and where you were born?

ALW: I was born in Apex, in Wake County, in Apex, North Carolina, January

the 18th, 1914. We lived there and I started in the first grade at Apex. And at the half-

year, in 1920, we moved to Raleigh for my dad to be with my uncle who had just come

back from the war and who was a surgeon here with Dr. [Hubert] Royster [after whom

Royster Hall was later named. He was Dean of the Medical School at Rex, 1903-1910].

KK: Your uncle was a surgeon?

ALW: Yes.

KK: And his name?

ALW: Dr. T. E. Wilkerson, Thaddeus Earl. My dad was Dr. Charles Baynes

Wilkerson, and my brothers were Dr. Charles Baynes Wilkerson, Jr. and Dr. Louis

Reams Wilkerson. And my dad died in'44 at 66. Charles Wilkerson died in'83. He

was born in 1919. And Louis died in 2001. Uncle Thaddeus died in 1927 with a strep

infection of the brain that he got from France. He had an abdominal infection first, and

he got over that, but he had a middle ear infection and it burst into the brain. And that

was before penicillin, so he missed it.


ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON 4/24/02 page 2

I finished Hugh Morson High School in 1931 and went to Duke University as a

freshman in 1931 and went two years to Duke and then transferred to Chapel Hill. At

that time a girl could not go to Chapel Hill until she was a junior. So I went to Chapel

Hill in 1934 and got my M.D. degree [C.V. indicates B.S. in Medicine]. I went to two

years ofmed school. I went to one year at Chapel Hill and then was able to go and get a

B.S. in medicine in 1936 from the University of North Carolina. I wanted to go to Penn,

because my uncle had gone to Penn and he was my mentor. I wanted to be a surgeon.

But a girl in my class, her father finished at Penn, and she got in and I didn't. So then Dr.

Isaac Hall Manning, who was dean of the school [at UNC] and who admitted me to

medical school, called me and informed me that I had not done what he said to do and

that was to take a letter and go to Philadelphia for a personal interview. But my dad

didn't think it was necessary, so then he called me and he said, "Are you going to do

what I tell you to do this time?" And I said, "Yes, sir." So he said, "I want you to come

by my office and get a letter. I want you to get on a train and go to Richmond and see Dr.

Lee Sutton," who is the brother of Louis Sutton, who then was head of Carolina Power

and Light Company here, whom I knew.

I went to Richmond, spent the night. I was met by Dr. Hall's chauffeur and car

and spent the night at his home and went down to the Medical College the next morning

and had a nice chat with Dr. Sutton. I didn't have anything, my transcripts or my grades

or nothing. And he said, "If what you have told me is true, I see no reason why we can't

take you." So I came back to Chapel Hill and sent him my grades and whatnot, and I was

accepted by return mail.

KK: So this was the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia?

ALW: That's right.

KK: Was it unusual for a woman student to be going there at that time?

ALW: Well, there were four [women] in my class at Chapel Hill, including me,

and there were four in my class at Medical College of Virginia. There were thirty-two in



our class at Chapel Hill, ended up being twenty-seven. But in Richmond, I went into the

junior class and there were seventy-six of us that graduated with an M.D. degree in 1938.

KK: So your M.D. was '38. Did you want to be a doctor from a young age?

ALW: I wanted to be a doctor since I was able to talk. And I went with my dad

[who was a General Practitioner] in the horse and buggy days. I never knew when my

dad didn't have a car, but there were so many places a car couldn't go, so we went in a

horse and buggy. He had two buggies and three horses, and we had a vacant lot next

door to our home in Apex. And Mother had a horse too. But I went with my dad, and in

the middle of the night, he could turn the horse loose and he could take him home.

KK: So you went with your dad to calls on patients?

ALW: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I got left at times. He'd drop me off somewhere

and he'd leave and I'd have to come back in the horse and buggy. So I've been from

horse and buggy days to today.

KK: Do you remember any of the cases that you saw when you were a young girl

that had an impact on you?

ALW: Well, my first delivery I saw was with my dad, and it was a girl and it was

at home. She was black, and she has my full name. And that was when I was a freshman

in medical school.

KK: She was named after you? How wonderful. How old were you?

ALW: Well, it was my freshman year in medical school, while I was in Chapel

Hill. And I used to go to the office on Sunday morning with my dad. He always went to

the office on Sunday morning, and one morning a fellow got hit with a brick. And I

looked at that and saw his brain [laughs] going back and forth, and I almost fainted. I

told Daddy, I said, "I feel funny." He says, "Sit down over there." But he got well.

KK: The fellow that had been opened up by the brick?

ALW: Yes.

KK: So did your dad encourage you?



ALW: He tried to keep me from being a doctor, because he said, "You see what a

life I lead. I'm not the daddy I should be. This is the last thing in the world you want to

do." But there was nobody happier the day I graduated. And I gave my dad my

checkbook, and I said, "If I can't make it from now on, you and I both have failed." And

from that day to this, I've been on my own.

KK: So you originally thought about being a surgeon, is that right?

ALW: Yes. And I wanted to be a surgeon, and I did not decide until I was in my

internship, but I realized that there were not enough women in surgery and that I would

not be able to do what I wanted to do. But in doing OB and GYN, I would be able to, so

I decided to do OB-GYN. And that way I got my love for surgery and delivered babies

too. It's just a wonderful life.

KK: Because as an OB-GYN you'd have to do certain surgeries?

ALW: Oh, yes. The OB-GYN is a female surgeon.

KK: Were you saying that women weren't becoming surgeons then?

ALW: There was a girl in the class ahead of me at MCV who became a surgeon,

but her husband was a doctor also. And she had a hard time with it, I realized that.

KK: Why did she have a hard time?

ALW: Well, they just weren't accepted. Men were the surgeons. And might I

say here, a lot of women think this is a woman's world, but it's not. It's a man's world.

Now we can get into it and we can do what we want to. Anybody can do what they want

to do if they want to do it bad enough. But there are ways of doing it. And there are a lot

of women in medicine, just like there are a lot of men in medicine, who've got no

business in it.

KK: Do you feel like you needed to learn the ways of doing it when you came

out of medical school?

ALW: No, not in a sense, because I thought by that time I knew, having been

with my dad and having been with my peers and whatnot, I knew. And I loved looking



after people. And I've always tried to treat somebody else like I would like to be treated.

That's the best I know to do.

KK: Can you tell me a little bit more about delivering the first baby? Or was it

seeing the first baby delivered?

ALW: I helped deliver it. It was a minister's wife who had this girl, and I helped

my dad deliver it. It was done at home.

KK: Was it near Raleigh?

ALW: Yes.

KK: Do you remember whereabouts?

ALW: It was out on Perry Creek Road.

KK: And you said you were a junior at the time.

ALW: No, I was a freshman in medical school, at Chapel Hill at that point.

KK: And the baby was healthy?

ALW: Oh, yes. And I later treated her as a patient.

KK: Did you really? So did you know her growing up?

ALW: [Negative sound.]

KK: So you got your M.D. in 1938?

ALW: That's right.

KK: And then what was the next step?

ALW: And the next step, I was also told when I went the summer before my

senior year, I wanted to work at Rex Hospital. And the administrator told me that I could

work there, and I had to buy my own uniforms, and not to feel that I was going to be an

intern because I wasn't. Raleigh wasn't ready for one.

KK: Because you were a woman?

ALW: Because I was a woman. So I said, "All I want to do is just to be able to

do something." Well, I lived at Rex Hospital, because three days after I got there, they

moved to the new building on St. Mary's Street from South Street. So I was doing a little



bit of everything, and most of the time I was staying in the operating room assisting,

because they'd put off elective surgery, and so they were just doing one right behind the

other. And if anything came of it, like an appendix or something, they'd send me to go

work it up and then bring it to the operating room. So then I was accepted. I was told

that I would not [be] by the administrator.

KK: Who was the administrator at that time?

ALW: It was a man. [Pause.] I can't think of his name. [ Winston]

KK: I've got that history that Rex Hospital did, so I can look it up.

ALW: OK. So then Dr. Henry Turner [chief surgeon at Rex] asked me what I

was going to do when I finished, and I said, "Well, I was told I couldn't come back to

Rex." He said, "You put in an application." So I put in an application to come to Rex as

an intern, and got return mail: Accepted. But I had to fight for everything I did, in a

sense. I don't mean fistfight, but I mean, I was always told the negative. I went to Duke

before I went to MCV because my daddy didn't want me to go out of state. I saw a man

and his wife, who were just delightful—and then I saw a man on the committee, and he

says, "Young lady, don't you know there's no place in medicine for a woman?" I said,

"Well, you and I disagree to begin with, because I think there is and you think there's not.

I'm sorry I bothered you. I'm sorry I've taken up your time. Good day." I went back

and thanked the people who'd been nice to me and left. And I'd been to Duke for two

years before then.

KK: Is that what prompted you to transfer?

ALW: Oh, no. This is when I went to MCV. See I wanted to go to Philadelphia,

but my dad didn't want me to leave the state. So he wanted me to try at Duke. Well, I

didn't want to go to Duke in the first place, so it suited me fine.

KK: How did your mother feel about you pursuing a career as a doctor?

ALW: She thought it was fine if I wanted to be.

KK: So she supported you?



ALW: She supported me whatever I wanted to do.

KK: Was she proud of you when you got your M.D.?

ALW: Oh yes, oh yes. But my mother stayed home and raised us five children

and looked after my daddy.

KK: Besides the two brothers who you already mentioned--?

ALW: Dr. Mary Susan who is practicing here now.

KK: Dr. Mary Susan is your sister?

ALW: Dr. Mary Susan Fulghum is my niece, and she's in with Dr. Randall

Williams and Chris Heaton and she does just GYN. She did do OB and GYN, but she's

still practicing. And her mother was the oldest, was four years older than I was, and she

was superintendent of public welfare of Wake County, Miss Josephine Wilkerson Kirk.

KK: So she was the oldest, your sister Josephine?

ALW: That's right. And I was next, then my sister. She's been dead several

years. Margaret Wilkerson Barnes, Margaret Wilkerson Flint Barnes, I guess, because

her son is named Flint. But she was divorced from him and married a Barnes. Then

Louis, he was the baby.

KK: And where was your brother Charles in the order? He was right after you?

ALW: Charles was right after Margaret.

KK: OK.

ALW: The two boys were the youngest. So I was my daddy's boy. He wanted a

boy worse than anything in the world, and he had three girls before he had a boy. So my

brother and myself have always been my dad's boys, and I was it until he came along.

KK: So that let you go around with him?

ALW: That's right.

KK: Did your dad keep the horse and buggy after you moved into Raleigh?

ALW: No, no.

KK: No longer any need?



ALW: No.

KK: So that was just for the country roads?

ALW: That's right.

KK: So then you were accepted as an intern at Rex, by surprise.

ALW: Then I was going to go to New York Lying-in for my residency, and they

[Rex] said they were having a pediatric epidemic of diarrhea, and pediatrics was my last

rotating service. They said, "You're not going anywhere. You're going to stay right

here." And I had my schedule all worked out and everything if I didn't get to New York

Lying-in. But anyway, one of the men on our service, Dr. Cloyce Tew, who killed

himself, he had done his residency at New York Lying-in under Williams. And that's

where I was planning to go, but I didn't get to go because the war broke out and my dad

got sick. So as a result, I went to practice with my daddy after I finished my rotating

residency.

KK: Where did you do the pediatric part then?

ALW: At Rex. I had rotating, both times. So then I started practicing, and then I

wanted to take my boards.

KK: Your medical boards.

ALW: No, my OB-GYN boards. But I was told that I had to take one more year.

One of the men on the committee said, "If they tell you to take another year, you tell

them to forget it." Because see, I was practically the only one here during the war, which

like to kill me from 1942 to 1946.

KK: Because you were working so hard?

ALW: Oh, Lord. I'd go a whole week and not even take off my clothes except to

go from scrub clothes to street clothes.

KK: How did you manage that?

ALW: I don't know why I'm alive, except for I have taken care of myself. I've

tried, always, and I don't think that I really hurt myself in any way. I mean, I don't drink,



I don't take drugs. I did smoke for thirty-nine years and then quit. I haven't had a

cigarette in thirty-two years. If I had a vice, that was it.

KK: So you were working with your dad?

ALW: Yes. I practiced with my dad four years, and then I practiced with both of

my brothers as long as they practiced medicine. And I built the building that the Planned

Parenthood is in now.

KK: Oh. Where's that located?

ALW: On the corner of Morgan and South Boylan. I built that building, and it

had a whole basement, and the second floor and then the third floor, and I built it so that I

could have built a small hospital if it went that way, but it didn't. So I had four

apartments up over it, and then we were on the main floor. And then the ground floor

was my brother Charles. And eventually, after Charles died, Mary Susan and myself

were down there, as we grew.

KK: When did you build that?

ALW: 1949-1950.

KK: It wasn't a Planned Parenthood at that time.

ALW: [Negative sound.] I built it and sold it to Planned Parenthood and

financed it. For their sake and mine too. They never had owned anything before.

KK: So you were in private practice and you were continuing to treat patients at

Rex, is that right?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.]

KK: Were you chief of the medical staff at Rex?

ALW: Yes.

KK: When was that?

ALW: You'll have to go in and look on that board and see all those different

things I got. I don't know. I've got my curriculum vitae that should say it. [C.V.

indicates President of Staff, 1948.]



KK: Oh, I'd be glad to have a copy of that, if that's ok. How're you doing?

Would you like to take a break, have a glass of water?

ALW: No, no. It's just that I haven't got any saliva. My tear ducts are closed up.

I don't have any taste buds. I don't have any taste in my mouth. Nobody knows what

I've been through except somebody who's been through it.

KK: I'm sure that's true.

ALW: And I haven't got energy enough to walk from here up to Lou's. In fact, I

do well to get to the bathroom.

KK: Well, please tell me if--.

ALW: That's all right. I want you to have this.

KK: OK, thanks.

ALW: Because who knows what the future brings? I don't know, just like I told

you. I just didn't know. I haven't got any hair, got a wig on. But that's all right if I can

get well. And at eighty-eight, I found that I had carcinomatosis of the peritoneum, on the

17th of January, 2002. And on the 18th of January, 2002,1 was eighty-eight years old.

And I did exactly what I told my patients to do, give it everything you've got. That's

what I'm doing. I'm going to see my oncologist Friday and then I'm going next Tuesday

to see the specialist from Durham, Dr. Marion, about my tear ducts.

KK: I hope he can give you some help. [Aside about tape.] Were you chief of

the medical staff at Rex before Wake opened?

ALW: Yes.

KK: OK. And we'll check the year later. Could you tell me something about

how Wake got started? Where did the idea come from?

ALW: Well, to begin with, it was an absolute political football between the

county doctors and the city doctors. But it was voted in by the city doctors and then, the

first meeting that we had, which I was a member, we voted to have the clinics. But the

first meeting we had, we were told [by Bill Andrews] that there'd be a main hospital and



four outlying hospitals. And at that time, everybody resigned from the committee except

Dr. C. T. Wilkinson and myself. And I told the president of the committee to please give

me twenty-four hours and I'd let him know what I was going to do. And I stayed on the

committee. I don't remember how many members were appointed, but Mr. Andrews had

been appointed administrator, and he met with us and told us just that.

KK: This was a committee of the Medical Society?

ALW: Wake County Medical Society. And that was Dr. C. T. Wilkinson in

Wake Forest and myself, one from the county and one from the city. So I felt that after

making my oldest brother, Charles Wilkerson, my political football for two hours, I

finally decided I wasn't representing myself, but I was representing the doctors in

Raleigh. And that was bigger than I was. So I stayed on the committee. And we started

breaking ground, and had the four outlying clinics, and they were referring people from

the clinics to Duke and Chapel Hill instead of to the main hospital, which is what they

were supposed to have done. So they eventually became extinct.

KK: The clinics, the outlying clinics? You were pointing out before we turned

the tape on that the outlying clinics are not functioning as hospitals.

ALW: No, they're now rehabilitation places or nursing homes or what have you.

They are not hospitals. They have never been hospitals. Then I was the first chief of

staff [at Wake, 1961-62] and was supposed to get the staff, and when I'd get the staff and

they'd say they were going to come on the staff, they didn't want to come across town

because it was terrific to get from one place to the other. But gradually, not all of them,

but some of them came, and I'd get two or three or four to say they were coming on the

staff. Then it would come out in the newspaper that the doctors were the cause of the

taxes in Wake County going up.

KK: Why would the newspaper say that? Why would they say that doctors were

the cause of taxes going up?

ALW: I can't tell you that. There isn't but one answer.



KK: I guess I don't understand what they were trying to say. Turn the tape off?

OK.

[Tape turned off and on again.]

KK: OK, we're back on again. Why were there some doctors who were resistant

to the idea of the hospital?

ALW: Because they didn't want to travel that far and take up that much time

going back and forth.

KK: So where were most of the city doctors located at that time?

ALW: Close to Raleigh or thereabouts. They had to be because you had to be a

certain distance from Raleigh or you couldn't be on the staff at Rex Hospital.

KK: So these were all doctors who were already on the staff at Rex?


KK: And you were as well?

ALW: Sure.

KK: Were you also practicing at St. Agnes?

ALW: Yes. I closed St. Agnes and opened Wake Memorial.

KK: You did?

ALW: Yes.

KK: Tell me about that.

ALW: St. Agnes, I did not choose to be a member of the staff of St. Agnes. It

was dropped in my lap in 1942 by Dr. Oliver, who was head of the OB-GYN department.

KK: How did that happen?

ALW: Because then there wasn't anybody to take it. All the doctors my age and

whatnot had gone into service. So it got dropped in my lap. I had the well baby clinic,

the sick baby clinic, GYN, and OB, all at St. Agnes.

KK: How many patients, approximately, would you be seeing?

ALW: I don't know. I don't have any idea because St. Agnes didn't have but not



anymore than seventy-five beds at the most.

KK: What were the facilities like there at that time in the '40s?

ALW: Very bad. No screens in the windows, no air conditioning, no nothing.

You just sweltered, just swish, fanned flies. But you could raise the dead. I took my

caudal nurses, right there with patients with toxemia pregnancy, and put them on the

caudal until I could get them delivered, tried to save their lives.

KK: I'm sorry, put them on?

ALW: Caudal, or epidural it is now. And because it would lower their pressure.

KK: And you could get them through that way?

ALW: That's right. During the war, there wasn't a colored person or a white

person hardly who didn't know who I was. And I could go anywhere, in the darkest alley

or anything else, and not worry, because they knew I was for their sake and would look

after them if I could.

KK: Did you have the medical equipment that you needed there, in St. Agnes?

ALW: No.

KK: What were you lacking, just for some examples?

ALW: Well, for instance, just being sterile. Because of the flies and the windows

and so forth, it just wasn't. They didn't have it. So we closed the doors at St. Agnes the

day we opened Wake Memorial. And at that time, NAAC plackets, this big, on

everybody's [indicates lapel]. And I didn't know if I'd be killed or not, but I say I didn't

worry because I knew the black people were on my side, and they knew that I was on

their side.

KK: I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you just said about the plackets.

ALW: NAAC plackets.

KK: Oh, NAACP?

ALW: Yes.

KK: OK, so people were wearing signs saying--?



ALW: That they were members of the NAACP.

KK: And what was it that they were concerned about?

ALW: Not anything. They were delighted apparently, but I said I could have

been killed. You never know what they're going to do. But I didn't worry about it. That

was the least of my worries, because it was a help to the colored people of Raleigh to

have a decent place to be looked after.

KK: Are you saying that there were some people who weren't happy about St.

Agnes closing?

ALW: I don't think so. I don't think so. [Aside about the blanket on her feet.]

KK: So when St. Agnes closed and Rex [meant to say Wake] opened, do you

remember about how many patients were transferred over? Roughly.

ALW: Maybe fifty.

KK: And some of the doctors and nurses from St. Agnes came on the staff?

ALW: Yes, yes, but they weren't happy. And one of the best nurses that St.

Agnes had was Laura Kelly, and you've got to talk to Laura Kelly. Laura Kelly was the

operating room supervisor, and I don't care what hour of the day or night, if I ever called

Laura Kelly and told her I needed her help, she said, "I'll be there as soon as I can get a

taxi." And she's helped me raise the dead. She gave anesthetic. She did a little bit of

everything. She was a wonderful nurse. Well, she was unhappy at Wake Memorial, so

she went to Dix Hill.

KK: So she did come over to Wake Memorial?

ALW: Yes, and went to Dix Hill [Dorothea Dix].

KK: Do you know why she was unhappy?

ALW: I don't know. She'll have to tell you that. I don't know. She just wasn't

happy there. I have a feeling because she'd been so popular and always at the top of

everything at St. Agnes, and she wasn't, naturally, at Wake Memorial because of the

whites. I'm sure that's why it was, but I'll let you tell her that. I don't know. [Mrs.



Kelly was present on 7/4/02 when Dr. Wilkerson corrected this transcript; Mrs. Kelly

said Dr. Wilkerson's assessment was correct.]

KK: Can you tell me the names of some other doctors who came from St. Agnes,

doctors and nurses, who came from St. Agnes to Wake?

ALW: Yes, but they're dead.

KK: I'd still like their names.

ALW: Dr. Gus Harer, Alfred Hamilton, Tom Umphlet [aside about the spelling

of his name], Dr. Gordon Sinclair.

KK: They were all doctors?

ALW: Yes.

KK: OK. Any nurses?

ALW: Street and Laura Kelly are the two that I remember.

KK: Was that Olivia Street?

ALW: Yes. She was a good nurse too.

KK: Anything else I should know about St. Agnes?

ALW: I don't think so, except at the present time they're renovating and they're

going to make administrative offices out of it.

KK: From the old building.

ALW: See, it was owned by the Episcopal church, St. Agnes was, and run by the

Episcopal church. St. Augustine is. You see, it's part of St. Augustine College.

KK: And it was all along, wasn't it?

ALW: Yes. They had a nursing home there.

KK: They used to have?

ALW: Yes. A nursing school.

KK: When did that nursing school close?

ALW: I don't know. I cannot tell you. The one at Rex closed, I think, in'74.

It's the worst thing that ever happened to Raleigh.



KK: Really? When the nursing school at Rex closed?

ALW: We had the best nurses anywhere in the world. I'd put them against

anybody, and when we got that new administrator for five years—not the one now—we

lost the best nurses we ever had. They just couldn't stand him. You didn't know Jim

Albright, did you?

KK: No. Was he administrator at Rex? Yes? [ALW indicates assent.] Five

years. Did he close the nursing school?

ALW: No, Joe Barnes. They said they closed the nursing school because of

finances, I reckon. I don't know.

KK: But nurses weren't happy with him? Is that right?

ALW: Who?

KK: I'm sorry. I thought you said that nurses weren't happy with Albright. Is

that true?

ALW: That's right.

KK: OK. We won't go into that. Do you know anything about the discussions

that went on with the county commissioners?

ALW: No, I don't.

KK: OK. You weren't hearing about those in the newspaper or anything?

ALW: No, no.

KK: About discussions about where the hospital should be located and that kind

of thing?

ALW: Oh, well. Cary Robinson [a county commissioner] was one of the big

ones who was out for it to be where it is now.

KK: Cary Robinson?

ALW: Yes. Knightdale.

KK: And why was that?

ALW: Because he was well-known in the community.



KK: And that location was closer to Knightdale. Did it have anything to do with

the fact-?

ALW: Sure. It was close to Knightdale, that part of the county.

KK: So you think he had a lot of influence on the decision?

KK: OK. Do you know, from the newspapers and just from being a citizen,

whether the main reason that Wake was opened was because St. Agnes was in poor

repair, or were there other reasons?

ALW: I don't think it had anything to do with it. I think it was just the fact that

Rex needed to be enlarged. Raleigh was growing and it needed to be bigger.

KK: Rex was too small. And there were doctors who wanted Rex to be enlarged

instead of a new hospital being built.

ALW: Well, they wanted it to be enlarged by going across the street to the

Methodist orphanage. That's where we wanted it.

KK: Was that on St. Mary's Street?

ALW: Yes, right catty-corner across the street.

KK: So was that building empty at the time?

ALW: No. And they wouldn't sell it to us.

KK: But there were doctors at Rex who wanted that.

ALW: You're going to have to get all of that later history from somewhere else.

I mean, I can't give it to you.

KK: Well, the early history, there are very few people who know it.

ALW: There are very few people who know it like I know it. That's the truth.

That's why I wanted to talk to you.

KK: I'm grateful.

ALW: Because there are some things I think you have to know to understand

some of the things that have happened.

KK: Well, can you tell me how you first met Bill Andrews. Do you remember?



ALW: The night we had the meeting.

KK: The Medical Society meeting?

ALW: When he met with our committee, he told us there were going to be a main

hospital and four outlying hospitals. First time I ever saw him.

KK: What were your first impressions of him when you met him that night?

ALW: It was bad from the beginning because he had misquoted what we had

voted for. We voted for a main hospital and four outlying clinics, and he informed us

there'd be four hospitals and a main hospital.

KK: OK, so you wanted just clinics, and the doctors had voted just for clinics.

What kind of clinics would they be?

ALW: They could have done normal deliveries. They could have done local

surgery, same-day surgery type things. They could have kept patients in after

pneumonia, that type thing, if they weren't too sick. If they were too sick, they went to

the main hospital.

KK: And why did doctors feel that having outlying hospitals was not a good

idea?

ALW: I don't know. They just didn't. They felt that if we were going to have a

main hospital, we had to have some source for getting patients there. As it turned out,

Raleigh's growth was the only thing that did it. It didn't come from the outlying

hospitals.

KK: Patients weren't referred from the outlying hospitals to the main hospital.

Do you feel that if they had been clinics and not hospitals that they would have been

referring patients?

ALW: I don't know. I don't have any idea.

KK: So you first met Bill Andrews at that Medical Society meeting. Do you

remember what year that was?

ALW: Around '58 or '59,1 reckon.



KK: OK. If I remember right, he was hired around '57.

ALW: He hadn't been there long. I guess about '58.

KK: And where did this meeting take place?

ALW: I can see it, and it was on Hillsborough Street. I can't remember.

KK: Was it in a public building?

ALW: I can't remember. That's one thing that I just don't remember.

KK: OK. Fine. So was the whole Medical Society there that night?

ALW: No, just the committee.

KK: OK. And how many people were on the committee?

ALW: There were about ten or twelve, and everybody resigned but two. The

chairman of the committee [Clyde Ward] resigned. Of course, he was the one I had to

answer to the next morning. Every one of them went off.

KK: So when you and Dr. Wilkinson remained, what happened next?

ALW: Then we started doing it.

KK: So were you at that point named—?

ALW: I was on the committee.

KK: But you weren't yet chief of the medical staff?

ALW: No, I wasn't chief of staff yet.

KK: But you were asked to start building the staff?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.] Of course we didn't have anything to do with it

during the building time.

KK: You weren't involved in building the building.


KK: How did you go about recruiting people to be on the staff?

ALW: Talking to them. Begging. Pleading. Doing a little bit of everything.

KK: Did you already know most of the doctors?

ALW: Oh sure. I knew every one of them. And the first clinic that was removed



from Rex to Wake Memorial was the OB-GYN clinic.

KK: I'd like to hear about that, but we're about to run out of tape. Let me turn it

over before you start.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A



START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B

KK: Dr. Wilkerson, you were telling me about moving the OB-GYN clinic from

Rex.

ALW: The first clinic that was moved to Rex [Wake]. In fact, we were trying to

get a resident and an intern at Rex from Chapel Hill, and Daddy Ross just would not

listen to us.

KK: I'm sorry. Who wouldn't?

ALW: Daddy Ross. Dr. [Robert A.] Ross, who was head of the OB-GYN

department at that time. And he said if and when we had another community hospital, he

would consider it. So Dr. [Arthur] Summerlm and Dr. [Courtney] Edgerton—they're

both retired and I'm retired—went over and talked to Dr. Ross and Dr. [Leonard]

Palumbo and they came over here and we went over there and back and forth. And they

decided to staff our clinics with students and residents and interns.

KK: From Chapel Hill?

ALW: Yes. So that's when we moved the clinic. And I'm not sure just in what

order the other clinics were moved. But ours was the first clinic.

KK: Do you remember what year that was that the OB-GYN clinic moved from

Rex to Wake?

ALW: You've got that in that other history I think. That was about'62 or '63.

KK: OK. So it was quite soon after the hospital opened.

ALW: Oh, yes.

KK: And the purpose of those clinics was to treat--?

ALW: Take the clinic from Rex to Wake, because it was the community hospital.

KK: These were for indigent patients?

ALW: Yes. Or patients who could pay on a scale, you know.

KK: OK. About how many patients would have been treated at the clinic at that

time?



ALW: All I can say is between twenty-five and fifty.

KK: OK. A day?

ALW: And that's a wide range, but I don't know. Some days it wouldn't be as

many, and some days it would be a lot more. In particular, orthopedics is a big service

over there. Surgery's a big service. Urology is a service. Pediatrics is a service. I mean,

practically everything's over there now.

KK: Over at Wake?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.] But I don't know how they came. See, not only did

I have St. Agnes, but I had Rex too. I was talking about the clinics.

KK: During that period when Wake was just opening up, can you tell me what a

normal day would be like for you?

ALW: I did well, during the entire time I practiced medicine until today, I did

well to average four hours a night sleep. Does that answer what you want to know?

KK: That's a short answer. What time would you get going in the morning?

ALW: I might work all night. You know, I never knew.

KK: Did you have a routine, that you would go to one hospital--?

ALW: No, I'd go as soon as I could. If it was so I could, I'd make rounds at Rex.

In particular, later on, after I'd be out here [at the farm] part of the time, I'd go to Wake

Memorial and make rounds and then go to Rex and make rounds and then go to the

office.

KK: Did you live in your family's home?

ALW: Just as long as my mother lived.

KK: And where was that located?

ALW: Five blocks from the capital, on Wilmington Street. You know where

Wilmington Street goes into Halifax [Street], right there at Peace College? That's where

I lived.

KK: Until what year?



ALW: When did Mother die? My dad died in '44, and she lived thirty years

beyond that. '54, '64, '74. '74.

KK: And then did you move out to where you are now?

ALW: No, then I moved to the apartment over the office.

KK: Oh, the building that you were talking about earlier.

ALW: That's right. Aida [Epps] had one apartment and I had another. I had the

two-bedroom apartment and she had the one-bedroom, until we moved out here in 1990

when we moved to Rex and sold the building.

KK: You moved to Rex, sold the building to Planned Parenthood, and then you

moved here to your farm?

ALW: [Affirmative noise.]

KK: Had you had the farm long?

ALW: Since 1953. I had two hundred and sixty-seven acres, but I only have a

hundred and fifty-five now. I put sixty-one in my charitable trust on the other side,

thirteen and a half in my charitable trust on the other side of the creek. That's the other

side of the road. This is the other side of the creek. And then I bought the quarry, ten

acres, and paid more for that than I paid for all of it. Because Aida just nearly died. She

thought it was going to be developed. They put four lots on it, and she said, "I can't

stand it."

KK: Who was this?

ALW: Aida Epps, who lives with me. Dr. Epps's daughter.

KK: Any relation to Garrett Epps, the writer?

ALW: I don't think. Dr. Epps died at 94. He taught Bill Friday. He and Bill

Friday were the best of friends, and he and Bob House were very good friends, and they

lived next door to the [Ed] Hedgepeths.

KK: When Wake opened up, were any of the facilities separated by race at that

time?




KK: There was a newspaper article that I saw that had a picture of a nursery and

it said, "This is the white nursery." So they were just mistaken?

ALW: I don't know. If they were ever separated, I don't remember it. [Mrs.

Kelly said they were separate for a time.]

KK: If you were doing OB-GYN, I'm sure you would have known.

ALW: I would think I would remember it.

KK: Do you remember anything being separate, eating facilities?

ALW: [Negative sound.] It was the first thing that was integrated, I think, in the

city of Raleigh. That was another reason why NAACP plackets meant something. It was

the first thing that was integrated in the city of Raleigh.

KK: The first public institution or the first building?


KK: How did people react to that?

ALW: Well, a lot of people don't go to Wake today because of the fact that there

are colored people there.

KK: A lot of white people don't go?

ALW: Yes. But we've got colored at Rex. It makes no difference what color,

creed, anything else. They're human beings. You're treating a life. But a lot of people

don't realize that. You're just a number, and it just burns me up. I'm sorry, but it does,

because you're a human being, and you need to be looked after. You need to be taken

care of. You've got a hard nut to crack with me, because I'm of the old school but

definitely.

KK: About how to treat people?

ALW: Right. And you treat people as you would like to be treated. That's why

I'm having a hard time right now.

KK: With your medical treatment?



ALW: Getting to my doctor. It's not my doctor, once I get him, but getting to

him.

KK: It's a frustrating thing.

ALW: That's right. It is frustrating. But anyway. That's the way it goes. That's

life.

[Pause.]

KK: Do you remember opening day at the hospital?

ALW: That I do. My speech.

KK: Can you tell me about it?

ALW: Well, all the county commissioners were there. Members of the staff were

there. It was all out front.

KK: The front of the hospital?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.] And that's when they had the NAACP tags.

KK: Oh. Were they speaking, the people with the NAACP tags on their clothes?

ALW: Oh, sure.

KK: Were they on their clothes or were they carrying signs?

ALW: No. Oh, no, they weren't carrying signs. They just had plackets on with

their names.

KK: And did they say anything at the opening ceremony?

ALW: No, no.

KK: OK. They were just identifying themselves.

ALW: That's right. They were just identification.

KK: Etta [Kimbrell] told me that some leaders from the black community met

with Bill Andrews before the hospital opened because they had some concerns about

whether the facilities would be integrated. Do you remember anything about that?

ALW: [Negative sound.] See, Etta would know that and I wouldn't.

KK: There were African American doctors and some nurses coming from St.



Agnes that you mentioned. How did they work with the white doctors who came into

Wake? How did that go with the black and white doctors working together?

ALW: I think it went all right. I think the white doctors have always felt that

they were better, but that's not my feeling. We're all human beings.

KK: Did black doctors tend to treat black patients and white doctors white

patients?

ALW: Yes.

KK: Yes, they did. How long do think that went on before that began to change?

ALW: I can't tell you that. Not until we had some foreign doctors, I don't think.

KK: So when did that happen?

ALW: I don't know.

KK: Now you yourself were treating both white and black patients?

ALW: That's right. Always have.

KK: And so were you uncommon in that?

ALW: Yes. I was the only doctor in Raleigh that I know of that had a colored

waiting room, male and female bathrooms.

KK: How long did you-?

ALW: Until I sold my building. Well, after a while, the blacks started coming in

the front door. They used to come in the back door and there'd be a waiting room right

there.

KK: So you had separate waiting rooms for black patients and white patients?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.] You know, some of them used to put them in the

halls.

KK: Some doctors put their black patients in the halls?

ALW: [Affirmative sound.] On a bench.

KK: And so you had a separate waiting room.

ALW: As far as I know, I'm the only one who ever had one.



KK: So other white doctors were treating black patients, they just didn't have a

waiting room for them?

ALW: Oh, yes. The black doctors did, but the white doctors--.

KK: The white doctors were treating black patients but didn't have a waiting

room for them?

ALW: That's right.

KK: Would black patients and white patients come at the same time?


KK: [Aside about the time.] When do you think the white community in Raleigh

started accepting Wake and started going there as patients?

ALW: Well, they're closer to it than they've ever been, but there are still

diehards. The fact that Dr. [Charles] Helton came there with the cardiology probably

came nearer integrating as far as making whites comfortable to Wake as anything I know.

And now a lot of the orthopedics [ ] do the same thing.

KK: Was Dr. Helton white or black?

ALW: White. He started the cardiology clinic. Well, he didn't start it, but he

was one of the big men who came here and really got it going.

KK: And that made a change?

ALW: Yes.

KK: Was that because Wake was offering things that weren't offered at other

hospitals?


KK: In cardiology especially?


KK: Were there other areas where Wake was ahead in what it could offer?

ALW: Now, wait a minute. What?

KK: Besides cardiology, were there other medical strengths that Wake had that



helped to draw white patients there?

ALW: I think that was the main thing.

KK: Cardiology.

ALW: Now orthopedics too. I don't know about any of the rest of it, but

cardiology and orthopedics I know today are. And then I haven't seen the suite. When

they opened the cardiology department, I couldn't [go]. I was sick. And I have not seen

the suite upstairs for patients' families to stay. I mean, Ray [Champ, administrator of

WakeMed] has done a great job, he has. [Pause.] I'm listening, go ahead.

KK: I'm trying to think of my question. Can you tell me more about Bill

Andrews' relationship with the doctors, what things he did?

ALW: Not really. I just don't think his rapport with the doctors was the best in

the world, but I don't know that.

KK: So you were chief of the medical staff for a little bit more than a year?

ALW: Two years.

KK: And what were your responsibilities?

ALW: [Laughs.] Go to staff meetings, see if the hospital was being run right. [ ]

managing anybody who was out of line. Get doctors on the staff. That's about it.

KK: When Wake opened, how many doctors were there on staff, roughly?

ALW: [Holding up five fingers.] Maybe that.

KK: Maybe five?

ALW: There wasn't many. Well, let's see.

KK: What are the names, the doctors who were on staff then?

ALW: Ernie Page, Leroy Allen, Art Summerlin, Courtney Edgerton. So maybe

there were ten. Louis Kermon. He's retired, been retired. He retired because a high

school graduate told him he couldn't admit a patient to Rex Hospital out of the

emergency room. That's what we've been putting up with. A high school student told

him he could not admit a patient. He says, "When it comes to the fact that I'm an M.D.,



with an M.D. behind my name, and want to admit a patient, and a high school student can

tell me I can't, it's time for me to get out." [Dr. Wilkerson does not want this story

quoted without confirmation from Dr. Kermon.]

KK: Where was the high school student?

ALW: At Rex Hospital.

KK: Besides the patients who were transferred from St. Agnes in that first year,

say, about how many patients do you think there were on average, in the hospital?

ALW: I don't know.

KK: Under a hundred?

ALW: There were more blacks than there were whites.

KK: Would it average under a hundred [a day]?

ALW: Yes, under a hundred.

KK: For that whole first year?

ALW: I would think. I may be wrong. I really don't know. That angle of it, I

don't know much about.

KK: What do you remember about the facilities at the hospital? I mean, it was a

brand new building. Were there features that made it especially attractive to doctors?

ALW: Well, they had good operating equipment. They had good labor

equipment. All the equipment was new stuff. But the thing about it was the distance

from one hospital to the other.

KK: Did having new equipment help you get doctors on the staff?

ALW: I guess it did to a certain degree.

KK: How did you go about convincing them?

ALW: Just tell them that if they wanted to go on practicing medicine, that they

had to be there. They had to look after their patients [and had to take care of the

indigent].

KK: And did you feel that it was hard work convincing people?



ALW: Yes, it was. Because they were doing enough without it. I'm sure I've

left out a lot of names, but you know, I just can't remember.

KK: Well, the ones that you do remember help.

ALW: Those are way back yonder, and it's hard for me to designate any years

because I've just practiced medicine all my life.

KK: Are there patient cases at Wake that stick out in your mind as being

particularly important to you as a doctor? Don't name any names.

ALW: Not that I can think of offhand. One night I helped a surgeon [treat a

patient] who happened to be a relative of mind. She was in an automobile accident, and

her spleen had to be removed. And I called the surgeon, and he said he'd get there.

Well, of course, I was already there. So I was scrubbing. I scrubbed with him until he

got somebody else there. I mean, you know, you did what you could. I scrubbed floors

at Rex Hospital. You know. But would some of them do it? No. They're too good.

KK: What would you say were the most important developments in the history of

Wake Hospital in each of the decades it's been open? Like in the 1960s, what was the

most important thing that happened there, at the hospital?

ALW: I don't know.

KK: It's a hard question.

ALW: I don't know. I'd be hard put to say.

KK: Let me ask a little different one then. Who were the people who you think

were most important to the hospital?

ALW: The doctors. And you can't run a hospital without doctors. A hospital

can't run without doctors, and doctors can't run without a hospital. They go hand in

hand.

KK: Are there doctors who you feel made particularly important contributions to

the hospital, besides yourself?

ALW: Well, I think that Dr. Leroy Allen did in neurosurgery. I think Dr.



[Geofredo] Ng did in surgery. Dr. Tom Dameron in orthopedics. Art Summerlin and

Courtney Edgerton in obstetrics. Dr. John Rhodes in urology. That's Flint Rhodes's

daddy. [Dr. Flint Rhodes is also retired.] I have to go back to people who are dead and

all. I mean, think about it. I'm just trying to think of different ones. Dr. Jim Thullen.

KK: What was his role?

ALW: Neonatologist. He meant an awful lot to Wake Memorial. He's retired

now, living in Morehead.

KK: Did he set up the neonatal ICU?


KK: And was that-?

ALW: Sure did. And that was another thing. Rex didn't have a neonatologist

and Wake did. That's all I can think of.

KK: OK. Are there people who are still living who you think it would be good

for me to interview for this history? You mentioned the nurse from St. Agnes, Laura

Kelly.

ALW: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

KK: Are there other names?

ALW: You talked to Etta Creech [Kimbrell]. Etta knows all I know about it.

And more probably. Dr. Louis Kermon. I don't know how well his health is, that's the

only thing. He's here in Raleigh.

KK: What was his area? What was his specialty?

ALW: Internal medicine. Dr. [ ]'s dead. George Debnam can tell you a lot about

it, but I don't know. George, bless his heart, he gets to talking and he doesn't know when

to stop. And he's just been sued. He's got twin daughters and they're both internists.

And I think he has retired. I hope he has. I did my damndest to get him to retire. But he

never saw me, "Hello, Dr. Annie Louise Wilkerson!" Lord, and here he goes. But a

great guy.



KK: Was he from St. Agnes?

ALW: Yes.

KK: Did you work together there?

ALW: Yes. That's why I say that he's one that you might be able to- . But I

don't know how well mentally he is now. That's the only thing. I just don't know. But

he's one who could give you some history.

[ ] could give you a lot of history, but she can't give it to you because she's dead.

I can't think of anybody.

KK: OK. Well, here's my last question. What haven't I asked you about that

you think I should know for this history?

ALW: I don't know. I think you've pretty well covered it, as far as I know. I'm

going to have to get my friend to look up my curriculum vitae. The main thing you

wanted was when I did certain things. You don't care about my other stuff. Some of it's

old. There's some new on it. Go right in there and flip the light on the wall in the

hallway. And on that wall, see if there's anything in there that you want.

KK: OK, I'm going to turn the tape off.

[On Dr. Wilkerson's hallway wall was a collection of framed newspaper articles about

her, citations, photographs, and other memorabilia. Among the newspaper articles were

Raleigh Times articles dated 11/2/60 and 8/6/82, and News and Observer articles dated

1/15/61 (Tar Heel of the Week); 8/5/82; 3/4/84; 6/12/93; and 10/1/95 (Tar Heel of the

Week). One article mentioned that she has delivered more than 8000 babies. Awards

include UNC Chancellor's Club Honorary Membership and the UNC Medical School

Distinguished Service Award; Medical College of Virginia, Outstanding Medical

Alumnus, 1998.]

END OF INTERVIEW


Documents

Interview ANNIE LOUISE WILKERSON APRIL 24, 2002