"Jane Edna Hunter" (1882-1971)

Was born in Pendleton,South Carolina,to sharecropper parents,Harriet (Millner) Harris and

Edward Harris,on the Woodburnplantation.Jane

father,the son of plantation overseer and an African-American woman,in complexion and features looked white.Edna who resembled him,was named for her English grandmother,Jane McCary.The young Jane resented her dark-skinned mother,and at times, in spite of her own light-brown skin and coarser features,preferred to identify with her white heritage.Home life was fill with friction because of Edward violent temper.Edna adored her father and almost always took his side when there were conflicts in the house.To his credit,he was a hard worker,who was determined to keep his family together,and he instilled in Edna the desire for education.His death when she was ten was devastating to her,especially since she considered him to be a buffer between her and her mother.After her father's death,Edna was forced to leave her family to work as a domestic servant until Presbyterian missionaries offered her an opportunity to work and attend school. At Ferguson and William College in Addeville, South Carolina,she completed the equivalent of secondary school.After graduation Jane entered a loveless marriage with Edward Hunter,a man many years her senior.she soon came to realize that a marriage of convenience was most unsatisfactory to her.She moved on to work in Charleston,and shortly thereafter enrolled in the nurses training program at the Cannon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses.Her interest in nursing was most likely in her admiration for her maternal grandmother Millner,a mulatto nurse-midwife who was trained by her former, master,Thomas Pickens,a physician. As a child,Edna spent many pleasant days with her grandparents,and  she worked for a private physician for a few years before going on to Hampton Institute for further training.After a year at Hampton,Jane moved to Cleveland Ohio,when she decided to join friends from Virginia who were moving to the city.She arrived in 1905 in a city where there were no safe living quarters for a single African-American woman and a few social services available to aid  in the adjustment to urban life.She found that in spite of her training,the color line extended to the health services.After working as a domestic servant once again to survive,she finally gained employment as a private duty nurse and masseuse in the homes, of some of the city's wealthiest families.In 1910 her mother died.Her death came before the two were able to reconcile their differences.This led to a spiritual crisis in Edna's life and for thirteen months her despair led her to contemplate suicide.She also had been troubled by her racial mixture and believed that such mixtures caused psychological problems.Earlier she had considered denying her African-American heritage,since her complexion would enable her to pass and to obtain privileges denied African-Americans.Edna recalled her contempt for the snobbery of the African-American church in Charleston,where "yellows" on the one hand and "chocolate browns"on the other created almost visible lines of separation of  the congregation.Some time would pass before she leaned toward service to people of her mother's race.Her recovery came in the decision to devote  her life to enhancing the quality of life for African-American women.In 1911,Edna called together a group of friends who had experienced similar difficulties after moving to Cleveland.The group organized to raise money to rent a home for single African-American women,calling themselves the Working  Girls Home Association.Edna was elected president of the group.By 1913 she had convinced some of her clients to support the effort.Most of the women were active members of the Young Women's Christian Association,which provided similar services to white women.In return for their financial aid to the African-American group,the association was renamed the Phyllis Wheatley Association,with a two-story,twenty-three room house and a charter that guaranteed control benefactors. Edna was the only African-American woman to be retained as a trustee of the new organization.She was hired by the new board to become its director.In spite of bitter opposition from many African-American leaders in the city,the home opened and prospered in the wake of the wave of new migration to the city just prior to and during the first world war.The first facility was replaced in 1917 with the purchase of a large apartment building that could accommodate seventy-five women,and in 1926,the association moved into a brand new eleven-story building that had been built at a coast of more than half a million dollars.Over the years,in addition to living space,the Phillis Wheatley Association also became an important center for employment services and training for African-American women. As a loyal follower of the ideology of "self-help"in the tradition of Booker T.Washington,Edna believed that African-American women should become well-trained for the jobs most readily available to them;namely,domestic service.While this mission was popular with white financial supporters and board members,African-Americans often expressed fear that by catering to their dictates,Edna stood the way of progress into other, more lucrative and dignified jobs.Thousands of women were housed and trained at the Phillis Wheatley between 1913 and the early 1960's when African-American women had become well integrated into the YWCA.As the largest independent institution of its kind,the Phillis Wheatley Association became a model for similar facilities and self-help organizations around the country,under the auspices of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).Over time,its program included a beauty school,kindergarten,a music school,summer camp,a gymnasium,secretarial school,and countless clubs and outreach organizations for African-American in Cleveland.Edna became well known for ability  to raise funds,her strict domination of the association,her work with the Republication party and as trustee of Central State University,and her work in the upper ranks of the NACW as director of their Phillis Wheatley division.From the latter association she became friends with other women institution builders such as Mary McLeod Bethune,Charlotte Hawkins Brown,and Nannie Burroughs.The four frequently exchanged visits and corresponded about programs and funding sources.Prior to desegregation of public facilities,the Phillis Wheatley hosted numerous national organization meetings and many of the nation's most illustrious African-American persons.Rooms in the residence were regularly set aside for African-American men &women who visited the city and were not welcome in its hotel.Locally,the institution's dining room also served as a popular meeting place for African-American professionals and was one of the few places where African-Americans and white politicians and leaders could meet and share a meal.Edna presided with pride as the gracious hostess.Most importantly,she used her influence to press for neighborhood services and decent living conditions for African-Americans.In the same year that she began the drive for funds for her new facility,Edna completed the Cleveland Law School and passed the Ohio Bar (1925).This training was most valuable as she became involved in real estate and stocks,serving as director of the African-American-owned Empire Savings and Loan Company and the Union Realty Company.By the end of her career,Edna had been nominated for the coveted Spingarn Award of the NAACP and had been honored with a master of arts degree by Tuskegee University in recognition for her,which served as the embodiment and essence of the industrial philosophy of Booker T.Washington.Her legacy of more than a half-million dollars was left in trust for the education of young women from Ohio and South Carolina.The trust is still active under the guardianship of the Ameritrust Bank in Cleveland.