Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Ellamae Simmons, MD Kaiser Permanente Oral History Project

Interviews conducted by Martin Meeker

In 2008

Copyright © 2009 by The Regents of the University of California

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Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Ellamae Simmons, MD, dated January 6, 2009. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Ellamae Simmons, MD, “Kaiser Permanente Oral History Project” conducted by Martin Meeker in 2008, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2009.

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Discursive Table of Contents—Ellamae Simmons

Interview #1: October 28. 2008

[Audio File 1]

Birth in Mt. Vernon, Ohio in 1918 into one of the only black families in town—Happy childhood with no racial awareness until age 11 or 12—Graduating from high school and applying to nursing school, rejection from Ohio State on basis of race—Admission to Hampton University, first exposure to black teachers and influential African Americans like W.E.B. Dubois—Later establishment of Simmons memorial scholarship at Hampton—Nursing school and instructor’s encouragement to attend medical school—1941 outbreak of WWII, graduation, job at US Public Health Service in Virginia, then New York—Volunteering for the Red Cross and then US Army—Three and a half years as an army nurse at Camp Livingston, LA—Post-war attendance at Ohio State—Recollections of early nursing jobs at segregated hospitals: Central State Hospital in Petersburg, VA, marine hospital, public health service in NY—Beginning degree in biological sciences at Ohio State in 1946 while on leave from the army—GI Bill: “I couldn’t believe somebody was going to pay me to go to school!”—Political awareness in 1940s—Being the first black woman to live on Ohio State’s campus—Institutionalized racism but mostly accepting student body—Break with racist Seventh Day Adventist church and becoming a Unitarian—1948 graduation with BS, not accepted at medical school, MA in social work in 1950—Move to NY to Cornell Medical Center, work as per diem nurse—Reapplying to medical school, attending Meharry, short marriage and move to Washington, DC, transfer to Howard University.

[Audio File 2]

More on Howard experience—Specialization in chest medicine and work with asthma specialist Dr. Irving Itkin at National Jewish Hospital—Move to California and work with Dr. Ben Feingold at Kaiser—Comparing Kaiser and National Jewish Hospital—Changes in medical culture—Ability to pay dictating access to treatment—The beginnings of multicultural medicine—Being first African American woman doctor hired at Kaiser, 1965—Comparing Dr. Itkins and Dr. Feingold’s methods—Some sexism and racism at Kaiser—Watching the idea of culturally competent care develop and become refined—Learning culturally competent care from patient interactions—Thoughts on the 2008 presidential campaign—Social change regarding race—The effect of the civil rights movement on medicine and Dr. Simmon’s career: difficult to define.

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Interview #1: October 28, 2008

Begin Audio File 1 10-28-2008.wav

01-00:06:37 Meeker: Okay, so today is the 28th of October, 2008, and this is Martin Meeker

interviewing Ellamae Simmons, Dr. Ellamae Simmons for the Kaiser

Permanente Oral History Project. This is the third year of the project. You can

tell me about when and where you were born.

01-00:07:06 Simmons: I was born in 1918 in a small town in Ohio, Mount Vernon, Ohio, which had a

population of about 10,000 people.1 And I certainly had a happy childhood

and did things that everybody else did. However, we were the only black

family in the area and, in all fairness, I must say that I didn't know that I was

black. I didn't even think about it until someone told me I was black. But for

long years, I was like everybody else. I didn't feel any so-called racism, for

want of a better word. And I went to school with the kids in the neighborhood.

I played with the children in the neighborhood. I guess I really didn't know

what color meant until around the age of eleven, maybe twelve. And then a

girl I had always been friendly with told me, "I can't play with you anymore

because my mother doesn't want me to play with—" I guess that was colored.

And so I said, "Well, that's all right." And I didn't think about it anymore. So I

told my mother about it and she said, "Maybe she's jealous of you because you

get good grades." And I said, "Well, she gets good grades, too." And she said,

"But don't pay any attention to it. Just forget it." And that's the first time I ever

thought about the place of color in our culture.

[Added during editing:

Here I must tell you about Seventh Day Adventists. My mother was a strict

Seventh Day Adventist. My mother and her four children worshipped her

every Saturday from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. We were one

1 See family history appendix.

2

of only two or three black families ever to worship there over the years. My

father was African Methodist Episcopal and very active in his AME church.

He was superintendent of the Sunday school, sang in the choir for 57 years,

was a trustee of the church for many years. But we were raised in my mother’s

church.]

Most of the time, I was the only black child, because you went to the

neighborhood schools and you'd go to the school in your neighborhood. And

the same was true through high school, although adolescence, when you start

dating, it comes out. You got to date. However, I didn't have a boyfriend. I

guess my mother thought there was nobody good enough for me. There were

very few black people in town where I grew up.

When I graduated from high school, in 1936, of course I expected to go to

college. I worked. Like I babysat and did little things. Pulled weeds from

yards for some friends and some things children do. And then when I

graduated from high school, I applied to Ohio State University for school.

Now, my mother was a nurse and so I admired nursing, and so, of course, I

applied to go to the school of nursing. And I had good grades. I loved to

study. And so when I got the letter back from Ohio State, "We have no

facilities for training colored girls in our school of nursing." And so I was

devastated. I never heard anything like that. I didn't know what I was going to

do. So I took a job. First, I registered for some commercial subjects, because

I'd taken college courses and I didn't know shorthand or typing, and I thought

I should. So for a year, I went to my local high school and took shorthand and

typing, which was good for me.

That same year, the professor from Hampton University visiting local

churches, and so he told mother about Hampton. I hadn't heard of it. I'd heard

of Booker T. Washington and I knew that Booker T. Washington had been

associated, his name, with education, with Hampton. And so I applied to

Hampton and was accepted and was given a small scholarship, even. And I

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guess I said it before, but when I met the faculty and saw what happened at

Hampton, I couldn't believe it. I said, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven,

because everybody treated me just like I was one of them." Everybody was so

wonderful. And I said, "Well, this is all black." I saw black teachers for the

first time and I saw the orchestra, the musicians. And then we had visiting

artists. I remember the first time I saw Marion Anders was at Hampton. And

who else did I see?

01-00:13:16 Meeker: And did you hear her sing?

01-00:13:17 Simmons: Oh, I heard her sing. Yes, yes. The president of Howard University, his name

was—can't think.

01-00:13:40 Meeker: Did any political people, like W.E.B. Dubois come and talk to your school?

01-00:13:46 Simmons: Later, I did see W.E.B Dubois and also the lady who talked to President

Roosevelt and was a friend of Mrs. Roosevelt. What is her name?

01-00:14:06 Meeker: I forget her name, too. I feel like it starts with an L or something.

01-00:14:125 Simmons: It was very dramatic that she was with this group about people in the NAACP.

Mordecai Johnson was president of Howard University. But at that meeting, it

was Mordecai Johnson and there was Walter White, and Walter White was

president of the NAACP. That name should come to me. She founded a

college. The merit group I was in, she founded within Cookman College.

There were about five such people on that program. And they were discussing

civil rights and similar subjects. And so she mentioned the skin color of these

people she was with. Like Mordecai Johnson and Walter White, they were all

people who could also pass for white. And so she said she was on this

program with all these men and they all looked like they were white. And she

said, "I was never so proud of my rich mahogany brown in all my life

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because," she said, "it was what I was, who I was." That I remember. That

happened at Hampton. But at Hampton, I met dozens of people that I would

not have met anyplace else. And it was the story of my life. You had that at

Hampton.

There's a program of me with the president of Hampton now. It's been a long,

loving relationship and I've established a scholarship. They don't get the

money until I die. My field is asthma, allergy, and immunology. And I've

established a scholarship in asthma, allergy, and immunology. They don't get

that money until I die, either. Howard University. But I'm happy that I'm able

to do it, if your uncle doesn't take it all away from me.

01-00:16:55 Meeker: Uncle Sam?

01-00:16:57 Simmons: I'll tell you, when he takes half a million dollars away from me, that's a big

hole.

01-00:17:06 Meeker: So you enrolled at Hampton with the goal of becoming a nurse, yes?

01-00:17:12 Simmons: I did. In nursing at that time, you have six months of theory and then you have

six months of hospital training, working directly with patients. And I had

never seen a black physician, nor had I seen a female physician, because there

weren't any where I grew up. And so I met my first black physician at

Hampton. He was on the faculty. And so on the morning when we made ward

rounds, he said to me, "Young lady, what are you doing here in our school of

nursing?" And I said, "Well, I want to help people and I want to be a nurse.

My mother is a nurse." He said, "You get out of here and go to the medical

school." And I said, "My parents can't afford to send me to medical school. I

can't go to medical school." He said, "That's no excuse. You get out of here

and get a job and put yourself through medical school." Nobody had ever said

5

anything like that to me. I had no idea. I didn't even think of becoming a

physician. But I did. So anyway, I never forgot it.

After I finished nursing, the war had started. And so as soon as I finished

nursing, I started saving my money for medical school. In fact, I had a job

with the United States Public Health Service after I graduated. December

1941. That year I got that job. I'm trying to think. I got the job in New York.

The war broke out in 1941. I was working in Virginia at that time. But I had

the proposed job in New York and I went to New York.

Before I finished nursing, I joined the American Red Cross because the Dean

of Nursing suggested that all nurses join the American Red Cross because in

times of disaster you're needed. And if in time of a disaster, national disaster,

you're asked to join, you're asked to serve, you should do it. And so having

become a member of the Red Cross, I got, I guess, three or four letters asking

me to join the Army Nurse Corps. After about the third letter, I decided I

should and I did. And shortly, they sent me to Camp Livingston, Louisiana in

1941. Anyways, I worked as an army nurse for three and a half years.

When the war was over, I registered for pre-medical school, this time at Ohio

State University, because it was the cheapest place I could go. It was a state

school. Ten years earlier they had not accepted me, but also the war is over.

01-00:20:49 Meeker: Could I ask you a few questions about those first jobs you had as a nurse

during the war? Because I see according to your resume, you started out at the

Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia.

01-00:21:03 Simmons: Central State Hospital in Petersburg, and that was psychiatric. That was a year

in psychiatric training. Psychiatric nursing.

01-00:21:11 Meeker: These facilities, were they segregated or were they—

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01-00:21:13 Simmons: Yes.

01-00:21:13 Meeker: They were segregated.

01-00:21:15 Simmons: Yes. Everything was segregated.

01-00:21:24 Meeker: Including the marine hospital and the public health service in New York?

01-00:21:29 Simmons: There were no black physicians, nor nurses for a long time. In fact, I guess I

was one of about eight or nine black nurses that were hired that year by the

US Public Health Service.

01-00:21:42 Meeker: In the entire Public Health Service?

01-00:21:45 Simmons: In the United States Public Health Service where I was. I was among the first

ten, I guess, in the United States Public Health Service. And as you probably

know, the US Public Health Service was militarized before the war was over.

Because as a public health nurse, I would not have been able to join the army,

because Public Health Service was militarized in perhaps forty-one or forty-

two. Forty-two. And it wasn't until a few years later that President Truman

integrated the armed forces. That was in 1948.

01-00:22:26 Meeker: That's correct.

01-00:22:27 Simmons: It was an Executive Order 9881. I think I'm right. 9881. And I think it was

signed July 28, 1948. I'm pretty sure.

01-00:22:53 Meeker: So were you working for the Public Health Service when it was militarized?

At the time that they were integrating?

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01-00:23:00 Simmons: I was working for the Public Health Service. I was working for the marine

hospital in New York for the United States Public Health Service from

January 1942, because the Public Health Service was not militarized at that

time. It was militarized later. After I was an army nurse, it was militarized.

01-00:23:48 Meeker: So while you were employed there, it was still segregated?

01-00:23:52 Simmons: While I was employed there, it was not militarized. Yes. Segregated. It

probably was segregated, but it was not militarized. Now, all of the services

were integrated with President Truman's executive order. And so I got out of

the army in 1946, because I was still on military leave when I applied to Ohio

State Biological Sciences. I started my degree in biological sciences while I

was on military leave from the army.

01-00:25:01 Meeker: Did you have access to the GI Bill?

01-00:25:03 Simmons: Yes.

01-00:25:04 Meeker: You did?

01-00:25:04 Simmons: Yes, yes.

01-00:25:05 Meeker: So the federal government helped pay for your education at Ohio State?

01-00:25:10 Simmons: They did. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that somebody was going to

pay me to go to school. It was inconceivable to me that someone was going to

pay you to go to school. It never happened before in history. And I really

didn't believe that I was going to get a check. And what can I say. It's real.

Why should somebody pay me to go to school? And my mother said, "Well,

they are."

8

01-00:25:51 Meeker: Sorry. Were you at all politically engaged?

01-00:25:54 Simmons: No.

01-00:25:55 Meeker: Did you vote in presidential elections or anything?

01-00:25:59 Simmons: Well, not until the days of Wendell Willkie.

01-00:26:09 Meeker: Well, that probably would have been about 1944, I think.

01-00:26:11 Simmons: It was around 1940, in the 1940s that I first voted. And at that time, most

black people were Republicans.

01-00:26:25 Meeker: Because of the legacy of Lincoln?

01-00:26:27 Simmons: Because of the legacy of Lincoln. And black people did not become

Democrats until FDR.

01-00:26:35 Meeker: Do you remember voting for FDR or his opponents?

01-00:26:44 Simmons: No, I don't think--I voted for FDR. I think the very first time I voted

Democratic. Yes. My father voted proudly, but, of course, my father was a

wonderful human being, but traditionally he voted Republican. But with FDR,

maybe that was the first Democrat that he voted for.

01-00:27:17 Meeker: Interesting. So tell me about enrolling at Ohio State University and what your

classes were like and what you hoped to do with that.

01-00:27:30 Simmons: It was in 1946 that I registered. Ohio State was still very racist, I guess, in that

the person who interviewed me, they were somebody's secretary. Wanted to

9

know why I had gone to Hampton to study nursing, because it was not a good

school and Ohio State was much better. She was an office girl, somebody's

office girl. But it was inconceivable that I were to go to that school. And so far

as not being accepted, she didn't seem to know anything about it. And she

said, "Well, fortunately, it is accredited, so your nursing courses will count as

elective credit. And so if it were not accredited, it wouldn't stand for anything.

But since it's accredited, it is elective credit."

And so black students were not allowed to live on campus at Ohio State

University. But I applied. I was still in uniform. And they told me I couldn't

live on campus and recommended homes in the community where I could

live. But there weren't any available. So I applied. I had a friend whose son

was a physician. Had gone to medical school at Howard University. And

while he was at the university, his faculty advisor got to know his parents and

this young man, he'd gone to Howard Medical School, but his father was a

physician in Columbus, Ohio. And his mother had met his faculty advisor. By

that time, the faculty advisor had become Dean of Women. And as Dean of

Women, she was Christine Yurgis Conway. Christine Yurgis Conway, now

Dean of Women, had been the faculty advisor for the son. And so my friend's

mother called Dr. Conway and told her that I wanted to live on campus and

that I had investigated these homes, and couldn't she help. And so it was the

third visit. And so I was given an interview and I was allowed to live on

campus. The first black woman to live on campus at Ohio State. In assigning

me the room, she told me that there was one vacant room in Baker Hall. That's

a dormitory of 750 women, and there is a room that we will let you have, but

you cannot have a roommate. So I said, "Well, that's all right. I don't want a

roommate." And so I had that room.

01-00:31:56 Meeker: How did that feel to be the first African American woman who was allowed to

live on campus? Did it feel like a triumph or were there mixed emotions?

10

01-00:32:15 Simmons: Well, the fact that I could live there was meaningful to me. I didn't want to

live in town. I told the person who was interviewing me that I didn't want to

live in town, that I was older than the average student because I had been three

and a half years in the army. I didn't want to live where I had to waste time on

the buses and streetcars. And when I met the students, by and large, they

treated me just like they treated anybody else. It wasn't the students. It was

faculty or a tradition or some—it was very similar at all the Big Ten schools.

If you were a football player, they'd make exceptions. If you were Jessie

Owens, they made exceptions. Because it was the same year that Jessie Owens

placed Ohio State—four gold medals. Actually, it was in 1936. I had

graduated from high school in 1936. But I also thought that because Jessie

Owens could go to Ohio State, I could, too. I didn't realize it. But he did for

Ohio State what I couldn't. They gave something to Ohio State and that

registered with me. But it wasn't to be. So where are we?

01-00:33:48 Meeker: But were you able to develop friends amongst the other students in the dorm

that you lived in?

01-00:33:55 Simmons: Yes, yes. The students didn't care. Actually, there were a couple of times

when we ate in the dormitory and I usually ate with the other girls. But on one

or two occasions—I remember the first time—I sat down with a girl and she

got up and moved. And I had made friends with some of the fellows who ate

there. And so one student who was from my town over came over to me. He

said, "I saw what that girl did," and he said, "Don't worry about her." Said,

"She doesn't mean anything." He said, "When I eat here, when I come here, if

you're here, I'm going to eat with you." And he said, "Just don't pay attention

to her." And he was right. So far as racism is concerned, there was a white girl

who started dating a Chinese boy. I was surprised that they were talking about

this Chinese fellow dating this white girl. It was almost as bad as blacks and

whites dating. It was prejudice against the Chinese just as much.

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01-00:35:31 Meeker: At this time when you were going to Ohio State, were there any community

institutions outside of school that you participated in, like a church or

something? Where did you go for camaraderie and where'd you go to feel

comfortable?

01-00:35:56 Simmons: Oh, I studied a lot.

01-00:35:58 Meeker: Okay, so you went to the library.

01-00:35:59 Simmons: Yes, I studied a lot. Well, the other thing, also, was my mother was a Seventh

Day Adventist. My father was Methodist. My mother was very adamant about

her religion and my father was adamant about his, too. But there were four

children. We all went to mother's church. I felt that the racism among Seventh

Day Adventists was just the same as it was anyplace else. I did not think they

were accepting of black people. And I didn't like that church. I never liked it.

In fact, when I got away, I said I would never go back to a Seventh Day

Adventist Church because I said that they proposed to be Christians and they

treat black people different and that's not Christian. And I told my mother that

and she said she would get around it someway. But I became a Unitarian as

soon as I had finished medical school. It's a religion that I could accept and

could accept me. And for about thirty-five, forty years, I went to the Unitarian

Church.

01-00:37:38 Meeker: Well, Unitarian has a long history of racial integration.

01-00:37:44 Simmons: Yes, yes, they do. And most of them are good people. They're broad thinking.

And they don't care who you are. They take you.

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01-00:38:09 Meeker: So let's go back to your education. I see that you received a bachelor of

science at Ohio State in 1948. But it sounds like you had enrolled with the

intention of getting your MD at Ohio State? What happened?

01-00:38:34 Simmons: Well, I got a BS in 1948 and I applied to medical school. And I was turned

down. The professor of gross anatomy sort of took me under his wings and

told me I was going to go to medical school at Ohio State. Heretofore, there

had only been one black graduate from Ohio State. Her name was Clotele

Dent Bowen. The first black to graduate from Ohio State Medical School. But

he said, "You're going to be the second." And he recommended me. But I

wasn't accepted. His name was Hugh Sutterfield. And the then registrar at

Ohio State, who was Ronald B. Thompson, had some grudge against Dr.

Sutterfield. Hugh B. Sutterfield. Ronald B. Thompson. And most of the

students that Dr. Sutterfield recommended, Ronald B. Thompson didn't want.

I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's what I heard. And my grades

were not outstanding, but they were good enough for an ordinary person. So I

said, "Well, I'm not going back to nursing, so what am I going to do?" I'm

thinking in the allied health sciences, so I decided to be a medical social

worker and I got my master's in social work in 1950, two years later. Again, I

was not accepted. But I decided I would continue to try to go to medical

school. Oh, so far as social work is concerned, yes.

In those days, 1950, social work profession was also very racist. And also, it

was anti-feminist. You think of social administration as being both men and

women in it. I applied for a job in social work at Jefferson Medical College in

Philadelphia. I had an interview. Because I had been looking for other things

that I would do with my nursing, my BS and my master's. And so there were

openings at Jefferson and I applied and was interviewed. And the chief of

social work was a woman. I've forgotten her name. And she said, "I have to

tell you that I can't hire you," almost with tears in her eyes, she said, "because

Jefferson is very prejudiced against woman and against blacks." She said, "I'm

13

the first female to head the Department of Social Work, and they barely

accepted me. And if I hired you, I would lose my job." And she was very

sincere. And she had known a black social worker who had gone to medical

school. Was a social worker and later went to medical school at Ohio State.

His name was Creedon Ward. This was in 1950.

01-00:43:21 Meeker: So you got your degree in social work in 1950 and then you ended up moving

to New York and working at the Cornell Medical Center in Bellevue?

01-00:43:37 Simmons: In Bellevue.

01-00:43:39 Meeker: And so these were both social work positions. Can you tell me a little bit

about what that work entailed? Were you kind of like a case manager?

01-00:43:50 Simmons: No. New York Hospital, I worked as a per diem nurse. Per diem nurse, that's

nursing twelve hour duty with no benefits. And some people do that because

they don't want the benefits, they want the money. It paid a little bit more. But

I went to New York. The reason I did per diem nursing is when I went to New

York, social workers with a master's in social work paid $2,800 a year and I

said, "Gee, I could make more doing per diem nursing than social work." So I

did per diem for maybe a year or so. Maybe a couple of years. And the social

worker salary went up to $3,200 a year. So I said, "Well, I guess I'll try social

work." So I remembered the chief, her name was Florence Ritter and she gave

me a job working with unmarried mothers and adoptions. And so that's what I

did.

01-00:45:05 Meeker: Was your clientele multiracial?

01-00:45:08 Simmons: Yes. Everything in Bellevue was multiracial.

14

01-00:45:17 Meeker: Did New York then stand out in contrast to your experiences in Virginia and

Ohio? Was it different?

01-00:45:25 Simmons: New York didn't care. They hired a lot of people. Racial groups. It was less

accepted in New York. But I still wanted to go to medical school. However—

01-00:45:48 Meeker: Some dreams die hard, don't they?

01-00:45:50 Simmons: It didn't die, though.

01-00:45:52 Meeker: It didn't die.

01-00:45:53 Simmons: No. I had started dating a young medical student when I was in Ohio. Ohio

accepted one non-white—not one black—one non-white per year. The year

that I had been turned down, a Japanese male was accepted. And the

boyfriend that I had developed a friendship with, the year that he had been

accepted, he was the only black. There was always one non-white.

01-00:46:38 Meeker: How big was the class? That was one out of roughly how many students were

admitted?

01-00:46:47 Simmons: I think at Ohio State, at that time, it seems to me maybe 128. Seems to me. I

may be wrong, but I think something like that.

01-00:46:59 Meeker: So just a very, very small number out of the whole.

01-00:47:03 Simmons: Of students a year. I may be wrong.

01-00:47:08 Meeker: But one non-white student out of 130 is very minor.

15

01-00:47:16 Simmons: And most years, there were no women accepted. Most years there were. And

Hugh Sutterfield, Dr. Sutterfield told me this. He became my faculty friend

and we would talk. So anyway, I still wanted to go to medical. You know, I

worked for a while and I continued to apply for medical school. This is 1950,

so finally—

01-00:47:57 Meeker: Where were you applying?

01-00:48:03 Simmons: Of course, I applied to Ohio State. I applied to Howard and to some foreign

schools. I applied to University of Lausanne in Switzerland, where I was

accepted. Instruction was French and that was so encouraging because I said,

"At least somebody thinks that you can become a physician," and it really

gave me a lift. Do you know that that same year, I was accepted at Meharry

Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. And so, of course, I took Meharry

because it's home. Well, it's Ohio and I don't have to learn French. That same

year. And so I started medical school at Meharry.

Before that, I married this boyfriend, a marriage that lasted two years. He had

gone into medicine to solve his problems and then he had gone into

psychiatric training to solve his problems. And he really did have problems.

And I think I felt sorry for him. And he was very bright and also sick. And the

reason I had transferred from Meharry to Howard is because he had

established a residency in psychiatry at one of the hospitals in Washington,

D.C. Very foolish. I was able to transfer medical schools.

01-00:50:19 Meeker: So you transferred from—

01-00:50:21 Simmons: Meharry.

01-00:50:22 Meeker: —to Howard?

16

01-00:50:22 Simmons: To Howard.

[End Audio File 1]

Begin Audio File 2 10-28-2008.wav

02-00:00:00 Meeker: Okay. So we just changed tapes. So when we were last talking, we were

talking about your studies at the Howard University Medical School. Is that

your phone? We were talking about your studies at the Howard University

Medical School.

02-00:00:31 Simmons: I had transferred to Howard, yes.

02-00:00:34 Meeker: Yes, you had transferred. Could you describe what it was like going to

Howard University Medical School, maybe in comparison to your studies at

Ohio State where got your bachelor of science.

02-00:00:57 Simmons: And my master's.

02-00:00:59 Meeker: And your master's, yes.

02-00:01:10 Simmons: Looking back on it, I guess a lot of the time I was in the frying pan and didn't

realize it.

02-00:01:17 Meeker: What do you mean by that? What do you mean by in the frying pan?

02-00:01:20 Simmons: When I look back at the things that happened regarding the professors,

regarding the students, regarding medicine and regarding thinking about

specialization, I knew that I didn't want to do just general medicine just like an

internist does. I chose the part of the body that I felt least comfortable with,

that I wanted to know more than I knew just from medicine. In other words,

specialization and I knew that I wanted to do something in the chest, whether

17

it was the lungs or the heart or whatever. I did a subspecialty in chest

medicine. A subspecialty, as you know, is one or two years extra time that you

spend. So I decided on chest medicine, and in chest medicine, a rotation, you

have to do so many months in asthma allergy. You do so much in the heart.

I didn't like asthmatics and I knew that I was weak where asthma was

concerned. The reason I didn't like asthmatics is because I thought asthma was

emotional and a lot of other residents/internists thought there's an emotional

component to asthma because in residency, at two or three o'clock in the

morning, asthma tends to get worse or even appear. And in my chest

residency, you would be on call and you'd be busy with sick patients and here

would come an asthmatic at two or three o'clock in the morning,

characteristically, saying, "I can't breathe." During my rotation in asthma, I

began to see there was something more to it than that. The chief of asthma

allergy at National Jewish Hospital, where I was doing my residency, I didn't

like him. He smoked a pipe. He didn't smoke it. He chewed on it. You don't

smoke around asthmatics. He was always chewing on a pipe. But it seemed to

me that he was rough. However, the longer I stayed with him, the more I

realized there was something to asthma. And fortunately, he said to me one

say, he said, "Ellamae, I would like for you to come back and do a

specialization in asthma with me." So I said, "All right." I don't know why,

but I said, "All right."

02-00:05:07 Meeker: Who was this doctor? Do you recall his name?

02-00:05:09 Simmons: This doctor was Irving Itkin. I-T-K-I-N. His first name was Irving. And he

had gotten his education and specialty at the Massachusetts General and he

was chief of asthma allergy at National Jewish Hospital in Denver. So when

he asked me to do a specialization, I found out after a couple of months that I

liked it and I really liked the study of asthma, that there is so much more to it

than meets the eye. And it's gotten progressively worse. It's gotten

18

progressively more severe, and especially has gotten more prevalent and more

severe in the African American population. So I did two years in asthma

allergy. Well, when I finished my residency, I knew that I was going to move

to California. I'd come to California to visit. My sister lived in Los Angeles

and I like California. My chief there told me, "If you're going to California,

there are only two places that you should consider going." He said, "One is the

hospital that's in La Jolla, California, Southern California. Scripps Clinic in

Southern California and Kaiser Program in Northern California. He said,

"Now, Scripps is just another National Jewish. They write the same papers,

they do the same research ad you'd be wasting your time because it's too much

like National Jewish. But I recommend Ben Feingold, who was chief of

asthma allergy at Kaiser at that time." He said, "He does good papers and he's

a good allergist." But he said, "Nobody can work with him, so you go and

learn what he has to teach you about asthmatics whose asthma is controlled

but who to go to work and go to school and they're taught to take care of their

illness. So they're ambulatory." And then he said, "And you'll be well rounded

out to take care of anybody in that field." And so I did.

02-00:08:28 Meeker: So it sounds like you were preparing yourself to practice medicine in a

hospital setting as opposed to hanging out a shingle and setting up your own

small practice?

02-00:08:38 Simmons: Well, either. Either. I could set up my own practice, which I didn't want to, or

go into a hospital setting and take care of asthmatics. And so he made an

appointment for me with this Dr. Feingold and I came for an interview with

him. And Dr. Itkin was right. He was very difficult to work with. He was

brilliant. He was one of the authorities in his field and we got along well

together. So I was there for twenty-five years and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed

the Kaiser Plan method of treatment, method of payment.

19

02-00:09:38 Meeker: How did you first learn about the Kaiser method? The prepayment group

practice model. Did you learn about that before you joined?

02-00:09:48 Simmons: No, I learned about it in 1965. I didn't know what the plan was. He just said

work with Ben Feingold. And, of course, Dr. Feingold was a little Caesar. He

said, "You have to learn my method of treatment." He said, "Those folk back

at National Jewish don't know how to treat asthmatics." That was laughable,

but he was very much an ego. He was always on an ego trip.

02-00:10:22 Meeker: Do you recall how his treatment method was different than what you were

taught at National Jewish Hospital?

02-00:10:28 Simmons: Well, it was different because it was different clientele. The National Jewish

patient load, they have life threatening illnesses. The patients that you see are

some other doctor's treatment failures, because doctors, they're not going to

transfer patients if they can treat that patient. Their treatment goes in the hands

of another physician. So you only get severe cases that somebody else can't

handle at National Jewish. Although I saw very few deaths at National Jewish.

But they were death defying asthma. It was different. There were two. There

were kids who were going to college or were going to work, would stay at

National Jewish for treatment until they learned how to take care of their

illness. Patients at National Jewish knew more about their asthma than some

doctors. They knew about their own symptoms. I mean, some ordinary doctors

who had not specialized, the patients knew how to take care of themselves.

But they learned about their own asthma. And the motto over the B’nai B’rith

building is, "None may enter who can pay." None may enter who can pay.

And then, "None who can pay may enter." You get that? In other words, it's

one of those old, well-set up Jewish hospitals who treated you regardless of

your ability to pay. If you didn't have the money to pay, they would still take

you if they thought they could help you.

20

02-00:12:39 Meeker: Well, that brings up an interesting question, because your main mentor at

Denver, as well as the person who hired you, and it sounds like mentored you

at Kaiser, were both Jewish doctors.

02-00:12:55 Simmons: They were.

02-00:12:55 Meeker: Did you feel like Jewish doctors treated you seriously or treated you better

than other doctors in your career? Or is that an overgeneralization?

02-00:13:14 Simmons: Well, I think there are many excellent Jewish doctors who guard their patients

with a jealousy. I mean, there are many Jewish doctors who take excellent

care of their patients and take care of the total patient and they accept his

culture. It's multicultural medicine. But that's true of a lot of Jewish doctors,

but it is true of some other doctors, too. The best training that I had in the field

of medicine was at National Jewish Hospital. They were there to get you well.

Like with Dr. Feingold, he felt, "If I can't help you, nobody can help you," and

proceeded to exhaust everything. "If I can't help you, there's nobody that can

help." And I remember a death that we had when I was in Denver. A little girl

who came in who was a patient at National Jewish and she was doing well and

was ready to be discharged. And she had been several months learning to take

care of herself. But she went out before she was discharged. She was going to

live with her friends, one of her friends, in the city. And the former residents

in this apartment where she was moving had had a cat. And so they thought

cats are highly allergenic and they thought all the cat dander was all cleared

up. But anyway, apparently it wasn't. And she came back to the hospital one

evening. She'd been helping to clean this apartment for the girl that had a cat.

And she started having an asthma attack. Started wheezing and that night she

was wheezing. And we could never break up that attack. She was so allergic

to cats. And as an asthmatic attack, there's all this thick mucus that clogs the

bronchi, bronchioles. It's thick, viscous, and you can't loosen it up. That's what

21

happened to this girl. She started to bring up this mucus, but we couldn't get it

up and we lost her. And my chief, with tears in his eyes, said, "Ellamae, I

never thought I could lose a patient if I got them in time." He said, "I didn't

think I could lose a patient like that." And we did get there on time. But her

bronchi and her bronchioles were full of thick mucus that nothing can break

up. I'll never forget. We lost her. Well, as I said, the best training I had was in

Denver.

And there are some people in medicine who guard their knowledge jealously.

Guard their knowledge jealously. Well, a lot of doctors, you're thrilled when

you can have a patient and somebody else couldn't. But there are lots of good

doctors who take their work home with them. And that was certainly true in

Denver.

02-00:17:47 Meeker: How did the culture of the doctors at Kaiser in San Francisco where you were

hired differ from Denver? Is it possible to compare the two places?

02-00:18:14 Simmons: As you know, medicine has changed. Long ago, medicine used to be a calling.

It used to be a profession and now it's gotten to be a business and that's true

wherever you go, I think. I am fortunate to be with a group who preaches

multicultural medicine. The feeling is unless you know a person's culture, you

cannot adequately treat his illness. Unless you know and respect his culture.

And that was certainly true of Denver.

02-00:19:11 Meeker: Was it like that at Kaiser, too?

02-00:19:14 Simmons: I'm saying at Kaiser, I work with a group. It's called multicultural medicine.

And I think both places are alike in that respect. However, Denver never

turned a patient away that they could help, while Kaiser and other places, you

have to have money or else you don't get treated. And you have to have a

health plan. And that's just true of medicine today. There are 9:00 to 5:00. I

22

mean, the newest thing is nine to five medicine. It just doesn't work that way.

But there are doctors at Kaiser who want to do 9:00 to 5:00 medicine. They

don't want to be there. But now, of course, you can practice in home. You can

write up your charts. There's lots of things. You can take your work home and

do it on the computer, which is helpful. You don't have to stay at the hospital

all night. You can write up your charts at home. You can do so much. So far

as the general attitude, I think Kaiser strives for the attitude of National

Jewish. I don't think they necessarily reach it. But the attitude of National

Jewish can't be beat. Their concern is the whole patient. Most of their

hospitals are not equipped. Well, Kaiser isn't either. There are so many

different health plans and health plans are, of course, geared to make money.

And in that respect, Kaiser is no different. It has to make money. It has to pay

the doctor. You have to pay for it. But I think National Jewish in Denver has

achieved a certain pinnacle that others have not, I think.

02-00:22:00 Meeker: Can we talk a little bit more about your work at Kaiser Permanente? I've seen

it written that you were the first African American female physician hired.

Can you tell me the story behind how you were hired and what it was like to

arrive on the job being a first of a kind?

02-00:22:29 Simmons: Well, Dr. Ben Feingold was a perfectionist in some ways and so my chief, Dr.

Itkin, had called and made an appointment for me to be interviewed at Kaiser

in San Francisco. It was in 1965. I didn't know that much about Kaiser. I

didn't know that much about it at all. But I knew that I wanted to be in

California, I knew I needed a job. And so as my chief had recommended, "I

think you should go to Kaiser." And so both my husband and I both came out.

And so actually, I was here for three days. But Dr. Feingold saw me first. He

talked a bit about asthma and he talked about chest diseases and he told me to

come back tomorrow. And what did I want in medicine? What did I want?

How did I see asthma? We talked a bit about Dr. Itkin's theory. There's a

theory that Dr. Itkin had developed called bronchiole challenges. Bronchiole

23

challenges. He had a machine. We would challenge a patient with minute

particles of allergens, such as dust, certain pollen, animal danders. He would

make a very fine mist of some of these substances and challenge the lungs

with minute quantities to see how much of this you could take. They were

called bronchiole challenges. And that was new to Dr. Feingold.

That was Dr. Itkin's theory, the bronchiole challenges. Dr. Feingold didn't

believe in that. Also, Dr. Feingold made his own antigens. Had them

manufactured in his lab, all the antigens, which were the animal danders, dust,

the animal hairs, pollen, mold. Dr. Feingold in Kaiser made his own mixtures

wherein in Denver, Dr. Itkin bought them from a pharmaceutical house that

made them at the time. Dr. Feingold wanted to make his own antigens and he

did.

02-00:26:34 Meeker: Were the antigens used to—

02-00:26:38 Simmons: Treat the patients.

02-00:26:38 Meeker: To treat the patients. Were they doing shots? Injections? Exposing people—

02-00:26:45 Simmons: Yes, yes. Yes.

02-00:26:47 Meeker: —to the various allergens.

02-00:26:50 Simmons: They were doing shots of the antigens. The bronchiole challenges were in

Denver. Of course, Denver did shots, too. But the antigens, they treat. And

also, they do venoms, bee venoms. Mainly bee venom, because some people

are so allergic to bee stings that they have an anaphylactic reaction and they

die from the bee sting. So you desensitize these people with bee venom. Dr.

Feingold developed those antigens and treated patients with them and was

24

quite successful. So there's some people's occupation can't protect them from

being stung every now and then.

02-00:28:21 Meeker: The Permanente Medical Group that you joined as a physician was like a lot

of other hospitals and so forth around the country, primarily white men at the

time that you joined. Did you feel welcomed as part of that group or did you

feel like you had to work extra hard to prove your worth when you first joined

after 1965?

02-00:28:59 Simmons: On a whole, after a while I felt totally accepted. There's some doctors that

challenge you. An example is I got a consultation from one of the doctors to

see a patient who had had a heart attack. And I saw the patient and the patient

was just having some asthma, mild asthma. And that doctor didn't like it,

because actually he had missed a diagnosis. There are things like that. I guess

it had nothing to do with color, except that he stopped speaking to me. He

stopped speaking to me. But that didn't happen to be based on race or gender.

Because, actually, a lot of people did not want a female doctor, which is fine.

And they had a right, if they don't—that's highly respected now. If you don't a

black doctor, you don't have to have one. That's fine. People who did not want

a woman. There are ob-gyn. There were certain religions who did not want a

male gynecologist. A number of religions. Or if a male gynecologist was

going to see a wife, then the husband had to be in there during the

examination.

02-00:31:19 Meeker: These issues about what we now call cultural competency, particularly

questions about the race or religion or ethnicity or gender of the physician vis-

à-vis the race, ethnicity, gender, religion of the patient, were these questions—

I mean, right now, everyone's talking about them since the 1990s. You know,

the cultural competency and the degree to which that makes a difference, and

preparing doctors for acknowledging how to compensate for difference in

25

some ways. Were these questions brought up when you were first practicing at

Kaiser?

02-00:32:23 Simmons: They developed.

02-00:32:24 Meeker: They developed?

02-00:32:26 Simmons: They've become more refined. They've developed so that today we feel that's a

patients right. Not only his right, we want him to express it. The patient has a

right. Like an ob-gyn. In one case, I know they got a midwife to take on this

patient because they didn't have a female gynecologist at this hospital. They

got a midwife and the patient was very happy. The husband was very happy

that the midwife was going to deliver. He didn't want a man to look at his

wife.

02-00:33:18 Meeker: Was there a point after you started that African American patients started to

request you as their doctor? Did they feel empowered to do that?

02-00:33:34 Simmons: Yes. Some did, particularly in dermatology. There's some skin diseases that

are peculiar to black people, and there are some black people who feel that

white dermatologists don't know how to treat them. Particularly in

dermatology and also in psychiatry. And we feel that's a patient's right. If

that's what you call multicultural. In psychiatry, there are all kinds of

psychoses and emotional feelings about mental problems and skin problems.

You respect that patient's desires. That's the way it should be.

02-00:34:43 Meeker: Well, it sounds like what you're saying is a patient should be able to request

the kind of doctor who they feel like can treat them best. Historically, though,

that's also meant that some patients have said, "I don't want a black doctor." "I

don't want a Japanese American doctor." Did you ever encounter that? That

there were patients that refused to be your patient?

26

02-00:35:15 Simmons: Never heard of it. I've heard of patients who did not want me to be their

physician, and I've had some white men who questioned me, two or three

times, who questioned my medical knowledge by the questions they asked. It

happens. But that's what multicultural training is. I recall one man said to me

one day, "Where did you get your degree?" I said, "Which degree are you

interested in?" I said, "I have several degrees. Which one are you interested

in?" Well, he kept coming back to me. Of course, I know he meant medicine

but I do have more than one degree.

02-00:36:42 Meeker: You had mentioned multicultural training and medicine. I wonder if you can

remember the first time that you knew of a formal training in multicultural

dimensions in medicine. Is that something that happened in medical school or

is it something that you saw much later on? Again, this movement towards

culturally competent care in which physicians and other practitioners are

provided very specific advice about how to approach a Latino population or a

population of people with disabilities, or gays and lesbians is something that

doesn't really come about specifically, as far as I know, until the 1990s.

02-00:37:42 Simmons: Yes, you're right. You're very right about gays and lesbians. Overt respect.

Overt respect has been in recent years.

02-00:38:06 Meeker: When do you remember the first sort of explicit training of physicians or other

practitioners about how to practice in a multicultural setting?

02-00:38:29 Simmons: I have difficulty recalling some specific time when this has to be taught. And

sometimes you may not be aware of what you're saying, what you're doing.

Was I guilty of that? Especially where gays and lesbians are concerned. There

are so many people who are gay or lesbian. Maybe you didn't know it and

then you find out one day, well, he's gay. You said, "I didn't know that." What

difference does it make. It's difficult, but I think that all of us can be guilty of

27

racism in some forms. Of racism. Of treating gays and lesbians different. I

think you have to prick yourself every time and say, "Well, gee, it's difficult

and it's there." A lot of us, we don't even know it's there sometimes. But it is

there in a lot of us. And we don't realize it until we're called and something

has happened. Some of the best people that I have known, the best, some of

the wonderful people hat I have known I found out later were gay or lesbian.

And you have to look at yourself and say, "What? Why did I do that?" If

you're not careful, you can find times when you have shown a preference for

avoiding a gay or lesbian person and you weren't even aware of it.

02-00:41:09 Meeker: It's interesting. When I talk to people in the medical setting about training,

about multiculturalism and training about how to, for instance, treat people

who come from an Islamic culture where there are different rules and different

social standards, people often say that, "Well, maybe there were formal

training programs issued by Kaiser Permanente the company, but that I really

learned what I knew in my practice through my patients."

02-00:42:00 Simmons: That is true. That is so true. You learn what you know. Patients teach you a

lot. That's true.

02-00:42:10 Meeker: So you feel like when you were exposed to different kinds of people in Kaiser,

it was by being exposed to the people as opposed to getting training from the

medical group, for instance, that helped you become more aware of difference

and sensitive to it? Is that true?

02-00:42:33 Simmons: That's true. That's true. You don't learn medicine from books, you learn

medicine from patients. You have background from the books but you learn

medicine from patients. And patients teach you what you know. That is true

blue. It's so true. The patients.

28

02-00:43:19 Meeker: Well, it's an interesting sort of historical question. When one looks at Kaiser

Permanente, they have a fairly good record of formal instruction on difference

and diversity. But it seems to me a lot of people say, "Well, it's not so much

the formal instruction, but it's the fact that patients in the Kaiser Permanente

system are very diverse already. And it's because of the diverse patient

population that physicians have become sensitive to differences." Does that

sound right or not?

02-00:44:17 Simmons: Which came first?

02-00:44:18 Meeker: Yes. It is a sort of chicken or the egg question, isn't it? But I guess I'm just

kind of asking your thoughts on it.

02-00:44:31 Simmons: Well, I'll tell you, this recent political arena is teaching a whole lot of us

something. Let's go down the history that reaches around the world. It is just

amazing what it's doing and will do. Don't you think so?

02-00:45:06 Meeker: Tell me more. I want to know what you think. I want to know what you think

about it.

02-00:45:14 Simmons: I think we don't know. We don't know because it hasn't happened. But if it

happens, I think it will be untold. I think it will be untold around the world.

There'll be changes that come about purely because of this election. So much

has been brought out. Race and gender. Race and gender. Hasn't happened

before.

02-00:46:05 Meeker: No.

02-00:46:08 Simmons: You'll live to see it. It's going to be so far reaching that nobody knows. It has

to happen.

29

02-00:46:28 Meeker: Have you ever expected that something like this would happen?

02-00:46:33 Simmons: Not in my day. I had a very wise father with an eighth grade education. One of

the wisest men I've known, ever. He predicted it would happen. He would say,

"One day, baby, it's going to happen." I didn't believe him. No. And to live to

go through it.

02-00:47:22 Meeker: It's definitely enough to get up in the morning for, isn't it. It's enough to get up

in the morning for. The possibility of it.

02-00:47:40 Simmons: Two little black kids running around the White House. Can this be? And here

they're President's kids. There are so many things unheard of. It's

unfathomable. Young kids are different than their parents or their

grandparents. Young kids are ready for a whole lot that I didn't dream. But

how did these young kids get so progressive? And they're ready.

02-00:48:27 Meeker: Well, these are the kids, my generation and younger, that were raised in the

wake of the Civil Rights Movement. That's what I see. I think that the Civil

Rights Movement was probably a lot more powerful and successful than

maybe a lot of people think.

02-00:48:56 Simmons: Yes, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think

Martin Luther King saw a great deal coming. But children are going to have to

teach their parents, their grandparents. Everybody has to lead them.

Grandchildren are in place to lead their grandparents, because grandparents

love their grandchildren and they can do it. But so far as medicine is

concerned, it's the best profession in the world. The study of the healing arts,

whatever form, it's the best. Because the study of the human organ is the most

fascinating thing in the world it could ever be.

30

02-00:50:50 Meeker: I don't think we have a whole lot of time left. Okay. Maybe just a couple last

questions. One of them is fairly big, so I apologize in advance.

02-00:51:07 Simmons: Should I write it down?

02-00:51:09 Meeker: Well, no. It's a short question but a big question. And that is what impact do

you think the Civil Rights Movement had on the practice of medicine? And

maybe you can talk about it in the context of your own career in medicine.

02-00:51:42 Simmons: How much time have you got?

02-00:51:43 Meeker: Ten minutes.

02-00:51:53 Simmons: How would you answer that? How old are you?

02-00:52:02 Meeker: Do you hesitate because you don't know where to start? Is it just so big?

02-00:52:09 Simmons: You don't know where to start and you surely don't know where to finish.

02-00:52:13 Meeker: Okay.

02-00:52:16 Simmons: What is the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on medicine?

02-00:52:20 Meeker: Well, maybe just think about on your career. I mean, your medical career

started actually before the post-1954 Brown v. Board of Education Civil

Rights Movement and it continued after 1968 still.

02-00:52:47 Simmons: Started when I went to school.

02-00:52:49 Meeker: Yes.

31

02-00:52:50 Simmons: Started before I went to school when the doctor came to my house because I

had scarlet fever. It started my first year.

02-00:53:05 Meeker: So when you think about the Civil Rights Movement, it sounds like you see it

in a long historical sleep from Frederick Douglass until today, right?

02-00:53:22 Simmons: Well, the only black kid in a white neighborhood born. Things that happened

that I didn't know about? In hindsight, looking back on what happened, I

didn't know it was happening. I didn't know it had anything to do with race,

but it did. Something that happened to me. Somebody came up to me and said,

"Did you see what he said to you?" I said, "Yes." "You know why he said it?"

"He said it because you're black and he's white." And I'm five years old and

six years old. And today it wouldn't happen. A kettle is boiling over. The right

volume's on. And this year it's exploding. You expect me to answer that?

02-00:55:10 Meeker: Okay. Well, let me just ask you one more question then.

02-00:55:19 Simmons: What was the effect of the Civil Rights Movement? Say it again. What was

the effect of the Civil Rights Movement on—say that again?

02-00:55:31 Meeker: On your career in medicine.

02-00:55:36 Simmons: The effect of the Civil Rights on my career in medicine. Holy Moses.

02-00:55:50 Meeker: You want to write that one down. Here.

02-00:55:53 Simmons: You got a pen?

02-00:55:56 Meeker: I know, it's a book or two.

32

02-00:55:59 Simmons: It's a volume.

02-00:56:05 Meeker: Yes. Well, it's a big question that we're asking as part of this project and I

recognize that it's an unwieldy question to ask and it's probably an impossible

question to answer in ten or fifteen minutes. But I guess it's what we're

thinking about when we're interviewing people for this project.

02-00:56:48 Simmons: On my practice of medicine or on the practice of medicine in general?

02-00:56:52 Meeker: Well, I think on your career in medicine. It's better to think about things

personally.

02-00:57:28 Simmons: What was the effect of the Civil Rights Movement on my career in medicine

and personally? You want it in a thousand word?

02-00:58:00 Meeker: If you think it's impossible to answer, that's all you need to say. You know,

Dr. Simmons, it sort of strikes me that your career in medicine—

02-00:58:45 Simmons: It hasn't ended.

02-00:58:47 Meeker: Well, it hasn't ended, but it's also parallel to or maybe even tantamount to the

Civil Rights Movement. Maybe that's why it's so hard to separate the two,

because they're in some ways one and the same? I mean, it's not often I meet

someone who was the first black woman in the dorms, the first black female

physician in Kaiser Permanente. I mean, that in and of itself, is the story of the

Civil Rights Movement. Opening up those doors for other people to follow,

right? I don't mean to confuse you. I'm sorry. I don't mean to make this

difficult. Is it?

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02-00:59:59 Simmons: Because with me, as I have written of my career in medicine, because

medicine is the goal of my life and behind it is lifelong learning. The two

programs that define my life are medicine and lifelong learning, and they go

together. Medicine and lifelong—for me. And the study of the healing arts and

lifelong learning go together.

[End of Interview]

SIMMONS FAMILY HISTORY

Oral history tells us that my paternal relatives were born sometime during the 18th century on the Gold Coast of West Africa. It was here that an African Chieftan with his wife and two sons lived.

It was the custom for some royalty , with as many of their subjects as possible, to board in corning steamers and trade their ivory and gold while the steamers were in port.

Oral history tells us that an African chieftan, with his wife, two sons and subjects boarded a European ship to trade or sell gold and ivory which was being carried in large wooden chests. During the time of bargaining, the vessel pulled out to sea and was far out from shore before the Chieftan and his companions were aware of what had happened. When they realized that they were being taken from their native land they were in mid-ocean.

'They were brought to America in the year 1775 and landed on the soil of North Cardina and sold. However they were purchased by Quakers, who did not believe in slavery and immediately gave them their freedom. The Chieftan, realizing the calamity which had been brought upon his family, died of grief. But the two sons remained with the Quakers even after the death of both parents.

They were taught the fi~ndamentals of reading, writing and arithmatic. They were paid for their labor and taught the importance of being frugal so that they would be able to properly manage their own homes. The Quakers promised to take them north and give them land when they were grown, where they would be free and safe from slave traders.

They were given the names of James and York Simmons. (York Simmons is my great grand-f ather).

After reaching manhood both men married and started families in North Carolina. But when their benefactors thought they were capable of being independent, they brought them via the Underground Railroad to rich country inthe Ohio River Valley to start life anew.

The land was a part of the Northwest Territory and it was here in the east-central part of what became the State of Ohio in 1803, that they felled trees and built log cabins and raised tobacco and corn.

These people were true pioners of the Northwest Territory before the turn of the century and before Ohio became a state. (This dear cousin, Vera Wooton Payne, used to delight in telling me, "Ellamae, the roots of the Simmons family were deep in the soil

1

of Ohio before Ohio became a state".)

The exact location of this land is in Belmont County, Barnesville, Ohio, just 30 miles northwest of Wheeling W&t Virginia.

It is obvious that Iwould wish to visit Africa. All that I knew about Africa Ihad learned from my family history as recorded by my dear cousin.

For my 1st 12 years of schooling I was always the only black child in my class in the small Ohio town where Iwas raised. i never went to school with black students until after graduating from high school when Iwent to Hampton University in Virginia. (A new and rewarding experience for me).

My 1st visit to Afrlca was in August 1971. It was a medical tour with the NMA visiting hospitafs and medicalsocieties from West to East Africa.

Our ist stop was in Dakar, Senegal; from there we went to Monrovia. Liberia. President Tuban had just died and the nation was still in mourning. We were given an audience with President Tolbert, and were also received by the local medical society; we visited the recently opened 3FK H~spital.

Iwas much more interested in learning about native African people than about their hospitals. African women. with their very erect posture, carrying large baskets upon their heads, they babies slung on their backs and both hands free to work at pounding grain, or washing clothes or hoeing fields, or cookirlg or whatever. Saw beautiful colorful tie die, worn by both men and women. Watched talented wood and ivory carvers and bought several pieces.

Upon preparing to leave Monrovia, Ispoked to the young clerk in the hotel, thanking him , and telling him about the remainder of our trip after which 1 would return home to America. He thanked me,but sad, "you are at home, you know you belong to us; you're simply loaned to America; you're one of us". He meant this.

We had similar wonderful experiences inAccra. Ghana. Visited the hospital, (Orlibu). Stopped brlefly in EnteWe on Lake Victoria, then on to Nairobe, Kenya where we visited for several days. The people, their way of life, the Indian merchants, the beautiful very tall, very handsome, very black Masai tribe, herdsmen in colorful native attire' impressed us all. We travelled across the Ambosale Safari Country at night and camped out in tents---heardthe jungle sounds at night and on to Mornbasa beautiful resort, down to Dar Esalam in Tanzania, crossed the Equator twice and up to Addis Abbaba had audience with Haile Salassie, me Lion of Juda. It was of interest that Haile Selassie and Mrs. Rose Kennedy shared the same birth date.

i must tell you about Simmons Family Reunion. My father bought our home in 1908.

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My father and my paternal grandmother organized and held the Ist Simmons Family Reunion in 1909 and it was held in that home the 2nd Saturday in August 1909. It has convened the 2nd SaturdayISunday in August evary year since except for one year during WWll when because of rationing we could not meet.

We alternate our yearly meetlngs between Barnesville and Mt. Vernon, Ohio each year until about the past 10or so years, when we have met in Columbus, Ohio at the spaceous home of cousin Vera Payne's daughter and son-in-law.

Vera Payne, our family historian, was a teacher and musician. She was born July 2nd' 1891 in Barnesvilte, Ohio and died October 20, 1990 in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Her mother (Mrs. Lucas) was a Simmons.