Hunter, Jane Edna Iris | South Carolina Public Radio

"H" is for Hunter, Jane Edna Iris (1882-1971). Nurse, social worker. Family circumstances forced Hunter to go into domestic service when barely in her teens. She was able to work her way through Ferguson Academy (now Ferguson-William College) and graduated in 1900. She was admitted to the Cannon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses in 1902. Her experience in the Charleston slums imbued Hunter with a powerful desire to help her fellow blacks escape such deplorable conditions. In 1905, she obtained a nursing degree from the Dixie Hospital and Training School at Hampton Institute in Virginia. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio where she opened the Phyllis Wheatley Home that housed young black women and trained them in various professions. In 1940 Jane Edna Iris Hunter published her autobiography, A Nickel and a Prayer.