our
410-398-6700
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Special to The Cecil Whig gator for Provident Hospital in
Baltimore.
In addition to essays on social
Those Who Made a Significant
Difference 1880-1930, she was recognized for being instrumen-
During Black History Month, many are the familiar names we are reminded of — Booker
T. Washington, Frederick
Douglass, George Washington
Carver, Rosa Parks, Harriet
Tubman. But we are starting to include a few lesser-known names amongst those who deserve our remembrance for their struggles and triumphs like Marian Anderson, Sojourner
Truth, and Anna Murray
Douglass. Those of us who hail from Cecil might include another woman amongst this array of notable lights — Sarah Collins
Fernandis.
Born March 8, 1863, in Port
Deposit to Caleb Alexander and Mary Jane (Driver) Collins,
Sarah Collins arrived on this earth the same year as the
Emancipation Proclamation.
Like this progressive proclama-
Fernandis was a noted African-American social worker.
tion, she would go on to make a better way for people of color, especially women.
She founded the first black social settlement house in the
United States in Washington
D.C., after receiving her Master of Social Work degree from on June 30, 1902. During a teacher career that spanned
19 years, she taught in public schools in Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. In Florida, she taught under the auspices of afternoon classes in domestic training for girls, with a thrift fund for young boys. By 1905, she inaugurated “Baby Day,” an excursion down the Potomac
River to Somerset Beach for
New York University. “Hers was a lifelong career of organizing social welfare and public health activities in the segregated black in 1882 and attended the New
York School of Philanthropy in 1906, four years after she married John A. Fernandis
1,300 children and their others.
When she left Washington, she built a fund of $1,000 to erect a new building, created communities of the period,” records the National Association of Social Workers in a biography on Fernandis.
She graduated Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute playgrounds for children and eliminated all blind alleys. She also secured housing with modern fixtures and reasonable rents in the neighborhood.
In 1908, she established another settlement house in
East Greenwich, R.I., in another unsavory neighborhood known as Scalloptown. While there she wrote an article, “The Negro and Industrialism,” in which she called for more employment opportunities for blacks, and lectured at the school for social work operated near the Women’s Home Missionary
Society of Boston, and then returned home to Maryland to she added a daycare center for infants, a kindergarten and
Simmons College and Harvard
University.
Returning to Baltimore teach in Baltimore.
Shortly after her marriage, in 1913, the Women’s Civic
League of Baltimore, a white helped meet the nutritional needs of children by providing clean milk to the young.
ers and conducted a study on
She traveled from
Pennsylvania to Vermont on a tive director of the Baltimore lecture circuit focusing on the plight of black female work-
Organized Cooperative Civic
League and the social investishe accepted the position of resident in the Colored Social organization, asked her to found a corresponding group of increases in black residency in
Chester, Pa., after World War
Settlement of Washington D.C. and with her husband moved to black women, the Cooperative
Civic League. She organized
118 M Street, SW, a five-room building near an open sewer of the first branch with 35 members and became president of the James Creek Canal, an area infamously known as Bloodfield. the organization that grew to include branches throughout
She acquired a second house in 1903 and established a pubthe city. Together these leagues lic library branch. By 1904, brought in street cleaning and
COURTESY OF HAMPTON UNIVERSITY issues, Fernandis wrote thoughtprovoking poetry, publishing two volumes in 1925, Poems and Vision. Her poems are also often found in The Southern
Workman, where she contributed work from 1891 to 1937.
The January 1916 issue eulogizing Booker T. Washington, for example, includes her poem
The Torch Bearer. The Troops of
Carrizal is her tribute to black soldiers fighting in Mexico, and during WWI she wrote of the courage of black soldiers in Our
Colored Soldiery. Another poem,
Our Allegiance, extols black
Americans for being patriotic in spite of the rampant discrimination they faced daily.
Her poem “Denial” was published in The Southern Workman in 1927 and is a reflection on her social work. In it she wrote,
“Yet oftimes as I make the daily rounds, of crowded city byways
I have found, shining up from the mark and slum of things, something so beautiful my spirit sings.”
Included in the publication
Pioneers in Professionalism: tal in organizing Henryton State
Hospital as a sanitorium for
African-American tuberculosis patients. She is also honored as the first black social worker employed by the Baltimore
Health Department. Sarah
Collins Fernandis also received national recognition for her long career of public service during her lifetime, when the
Surgeon General of the United
States invited her in March 1922 as one of 15 women to form a women’s advisory council to the US Public Health Service in
Washington.
This amazing woman from
Port Deposit who defied the eyes and paved the way for others died at age 88 on July
11, 1951 and is laid to rest in Baltimore. Her home state remembered her by the dedication of a room in the Druid Hill
YMCA several years later and her inclusion in a book entitled
Notable Maryland Women, though few are they who readily remember this tireless pioneer for women and the African
American community.
by the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Fernandis was also known for her poetry, which was often published in the Southern Workman.
l o ca l h e ro e s
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agregory@cecilwhig.com
Rank: Firefighter and Paramedic
Agency: Community Fire Company of Rising
Sun
Years of service: 5 years
What inspired you to serve?: I am a third generation firefighter. My dad is a member of
Rising Sun and my grandfather was a member of Oxford, Pa.
Best professional moment: I drove upon a wreck and discovered am elderly gentleman’s arm was amputated. I was able to put a tourniquet on it and call for a helicopter to fly him to shock trauma. I still check in on him and his family to this day.
m e e t yo u r n e i g h b o r r
r
agregory@cecilwhig.com
Occupation: Auto tech for 11 years at Jerry
Auto in Rising Sun
Hometown: Colora
Family: Wife and two sons
Hobbies: Work and 4-H volunteer
What do you like most about living in your neighborhood?
Neighbors are helpful, lack of congestion and a small post office friendly service.
What are some of your fondest memories about your neighborhood?
At Jerry Auto, some of the customers bring me cookies and chips and Mrs. Denver brings in pies.
What advice do you have for a newcomer? Get to know your neighbors.