SARASOTA (Feb. 24, 2025) – In recognition of Black History Month, and as part of its yearlong centennial reflections, Sarasota Memorial honors the trailblazing African American nurses and pioneering leaders from Newtown who overcame adversity and broke through barriers to care for their families and community.
In its centennial book, A Century of Caring, SMH describes the impact segregation had on Black patients seeking medical care in the Sarasota community, sharing poignant personal stories and historical accounts from Newtown elders and civic elders.
Longtime Newtown leader Jetson Grimes, who is pictured as a young child in SMH’s history book with midwife Lenora Brooks, recalls that, up until the mid-1960s, Black patients seeking care at SMH were assigned rooms in a separate annex behind the hospital, or in overflow barracks. Those seeking professional medical services in the community often had to seek out white doctors who provided care in their offices; but most of those remained segregated too, with separate entrances marked “COLORED.”
Inez Timmons, RN, believed to be Newtown’s first registered nurse, cared for patients in a segregated ward at SMH. She worked her way up from to a leadership position in SMH’s cardiac intensive care unit.
“This has been one of the amazing changes of our evolution as a community and as African American people,” Grimes reflected. “I remember being separate from the rest of the facilities of Memorial Hospital. I remember the barracks ... being treated by African American nurses. I remember having no air conditioning. I remember the lights had been very, very dim. There were only two or three doctors who would even treat African Americans during that period. Most people of my generation were delivered by midwives.”
Despite the challenges, Newtown’s early nurses became trailblazers at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in the decades before integration. Among the first were licensed practical nurse Georgia Thomas and Inez Timmons, caring for patients in the segregated ward at SMH. Both worked for 20-plus years at SMH. Timmons, believed to be the first Black registered nurse from the Newtown community, worked her way up to a leadership role in the hospital's cardiac intensive care unit, one of the most advanced units of its kind in the country at the time.
“How we get here today is in large part because these midwives, these nurses,” explained Newtown native Renee Gilmore, whose grandmother Annie McElroy captured Sarasota’s Black history in her book But Your World and My World. “These caregivers built relationships. Nurses like Nurse Timmons created the bridge between the Black community, Black patients and the White community. She was well-trained, an incredible communicator, an incredible caregiver, and she had some bravery about her too. Any time someone is a first, it's important, because it allows the children ... it allows the young ones ... to see that it is possible.”
Inez Timmons with SMH benefactors Mr. & Mrs. Harry Sudakoff, at an appreciation tea she organized for them in 1974 following a donation that created one of the nation’s first cardiac intensive care units at SMH.
Sarasota Memorial’s first African American supervisor, Albert Collier, was hired in 1955. The first Black physician to gain privileges at SMH was John Chenault, MD, in 1960. Following integration, a succession of pioneering Black clinicians and specialists would bring diversity to SMH’s medical staff and approaches to care. You can read more about them in the electronic version of SMH’s 100-year history book, available at smh.com/100.
Interactive/Online History
Flip through the electronic version of SMH’s 100-year history book, upload a special photo to SMH’s historical timeline and learn about SMH’s storied history in fun and interactive ways at smh.com/100.
About Sarasota Memorial Health Care System
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System is a regional medical center offering Southwest Florida’s greatest breadth and depth of care, with 2,500 physicians and advanced practice providers and nearly 2 million patient visits a year across its network of care. Sarasota County’s largest employer, the community-owned health system includes two full-service hospitals in Sarasota and Venice, freestanding ERs in North Port and Lakewood Ranch, a behavioral health hospital, skilled nursing facility and a comprehensive network of outpatient centers, urgent care clinics and physician practices. Founded in 1925, SMH is celebrating its 100-year anniversary in 2025 and encouraging community members to visit smh.com/100 throughout the year for centennial events and updates.