Mary B. Jewett, M.D. - The Woman who Stepped Up
Mary Jewett was born in 1858 in Mogadore, Ohio, and spent the first half of her life breaking through barriers that most women of her era never attempted. She completed her public education, graduated from the Philadelphia Presbyterian School of Medicine, taught at Buchtel College, the forerunner of the University of Akron, during the 1870s, and later joined the faculty at Merrill-VanLear College in New York. She started a medical practice in New York City at a time when female physicians were rare enough to be remarkable, built a respected reputation, and wrote a book about women in medicine at a moment when the prevailing wisdom was that women had no business being in it.
She was, in other words, entirely accustomed to doing things people said couldn’t be done.
In 1910, following the death of her brother-inlaw Frederick Inman, Mary moved to Winter Haven permanently to help her sister Florence. She was fifty-two years old, accomplished and unhurried, and she wasted no time. Within three years she had founded the Women’s Civic League, now the Woman’s Club, and established Winter Haven’s first public library. These were significant contributions. But they were not her most lasting ones.
Mary Jewett looked at Winter Haven’s African American community and saw what others in positions of influence had chosen not to see: people who had built thriving neighborhoods, raised families, worked the groves and the railroad and the packing houses — and who had been given almost nothing in return by the institutions that surrounded them. She decided to act.
Her involvement through the 1910s and 1920s was both personal and material. She donated land on the east shore of Lake Maude, creating a recreational space for African American residents, a pavilion, a putting green, a horseshoe area, and a baseball diamond. She gave her time. She gave her presence. And when she died in 1928, one of her three principal bequests directed funds held at the Snell National Bank toward the construction of a school for African American children, along with a home for the school’s teachers, with rooms available at reasonable rates to teachers and senior pupils alike.
The late U.J. Johnson, whose uncle served as Dr. Jewett’s chauffeur, spoke about her legacy with a directness that no paraphrase should diminish:
“She was really the first person in the city of Winter Haven, from what I’ve read and what my uncle said, to really be sympathetic to the needs of the African-Americans in the city. She provided for African-American students the very first real school and this is something you just can’t forget. That was one of the things she did. The other was that she provided a strip of land on the east shore of Lake Maude providing a pavilion, a putting green, a horse shoe area, a baseball area — she bought land and donated the area to African-Americans.”
Johnson framed the significance plainly: African Americans had been moving into the Winter Haven area since the 1870s. It was not until Jewett’s work in the following decades that someone of standing chose to help. “Up to that time,” he said, “we did not have any person of stature to step up to the plate. She stepped up to the plate and did the right thing and we certainly appreciate her.”
Dan Costello, whose research informs much of what we know about Jewett, put it simply: her philanthropic work crossed the boundaries of gender and race at a time when crossing either one was uncommon. She crossed both, simultaneously, without apparent hesitation.
Mary Jewett came to Winter Haven to look after her sister. She stayed to look after a community. The school, the library, the recreation ground, the teacher’s home- these are the marks she left on a city that was still deciding, in those years, what kind of place it wanted to be. She had a clear opinion about the answer, and she put her money, her time, and her reputation behind it.
MARY JEWETT AND EARLY FLORENCE VILLA SCHOOLS …
Taken from Historical Marker Text:
The Florence Villa Training School for Negroes replaced an earlier African-American school built in 1916 on the corner of 2nd and Palmetto Street. By 1922 the first school was in disrepair, and classes were held at the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. Seeing the need for a permanent campus, local white physician Dr. Mary B. Jewett in March 1924 approached the Board of Public Instruction with construction plans and an offer to donate this land. Construction began in August 1924. Funding sources were as follows:
Negro donations: $2,000;
White donations: $11,000;
Ad Valorem Taxes: $5,000;
and Julius Rosenwald School Fund: $1,500.
An alternate school location was chosen farther to the north. When the five-acre campus opened on December 1, 1924, the building consisted of six large classrooms, a Domestic Science Department, and an auditorium. Enrollment peaked at 250 students. On the night of January 17, 1925, a fire destroyed the school and its furnishings. The Florence Villa Town Council offered a $500 reward for information leading to the apprehension of those responsible, to no avail. This property was returned to Dr. Jewett in May 1925, and an alternate school location was chosen farther to the north.
