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Everlyn Louise Swales Holland
b. December 31,1932 -
Nurse, civil rights worker, activist, member of numerous St. Mary’s County Boards and recipient of the St. Mary’s County Commission on Women Lifetime Achievement Award 2010
Everlyn Swales Holland was born in a hospital in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1932. At the time, this was an unusual event for an African American, but because her grandfather worked for the Southern Railroad, her family had health insurance. Her family moved to St. Mary’s County, Maryland when she was three months old. The schools were segregated at that time, and when she graduated from Benjamin Banneker High School in 1949, there were only eleven grades in the one high school open to Black students. She started working at the age of 11, washing dishes at Leonard Hall School for Boys, and never stopped working until she retired in 1998 from a 40-year nursing career at St. Mary’s Hospital. In the early days, the hospital was segregated, and she tended to the patients crowded into the wing for African Americans. As she stated, ” The hospital was no place for an African American. The Blacks were housed in the old part of the hospital. They had to walk up the fire escape to enter because they were not allowed to enter through the front door. Conditions there were such that most African Americans were treated at home by Dr. Bean. ” At that time, she also worked as a midwife for the Blacks and the Amish. Over time she worked in all the hospital areas, including Pediatrics and the Emergency Room. When there was a dire shortage of nurses at the hospital, she helped create and raise funds for the Louise Bush Scholarship fund. Scholarships were given to encourage student nurses to complete their studies and return to St. Mary’s County to work – a “grow your own” effort.
Taken by an unknown photographer at the St. Mary's County Human Relations Commission breakfast where Ms. Holland was recognized. c2002
Her community service is both long and deep. She and her late husband Melvin worked with local and national citizen’s civil rights groups in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, including the NAACP and a local group called Citizens for Progress, promoting equity in education, business, and social services. Citizens for Progress members were involved in, among other things, voter registration drives. The group created a community center and started a credit union in Oakville, MD. They also compiled and published a cookbook titled, 300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County, which evolved through three editions and has been republished by the St. Mary’s County Library.
Ms. Holland served for over 30 years on the St. Mary’s Branch NAACP Education and Political Action Committees. She also served on several county boards including the Library Board; St. Aloysius St. Vincent DePaul Society; St. Mary’s County Social Services Board; and the Health Partners Clinic in Waldorf and St. Mary’s County. She served on the St. Mary’s County Board of Education’s Growth Management Committee. She was one of the founders of the St. Mary’s County Commission on Women and received a lifetime achievement award from the group in 2010.
In 1996 and 1997, Everlyn Holland was interviewed by Merideth Taylor as part of the Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions (UCAC) Oral History Project. See links to verbatim transcripts and recordings below. Of particular interest in the 1996 interview may be the extensive comments on her years as a nurse in the segregated St. Mary’s Hospital. In the 1997 interview, she shares her memories of life in St. Mary’s County during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam wars and talks extensively about the national and local Civil Rights struggle, (including names of local leaders), the gains and losses of school desegregation, and community relations. She also touches on the subjects of religion and music.
