Recently, I received a Facebook message from a woman named Suzanne, living in North Carolina, who had been searching for her father’s obituary for several years to no avail.
Suzanne knew about my work with the historic Midland Cemetery, an African-American cemetery just outside Steelton. Former slaves are buried there, along with black soldiers from conflicts dating back to the Civil War. Suzanne knew, from the cemetery’s website and Facebook page, that I occasionally do genealogy research for people looking for information on their ancestors. She was looking for a George Albert Jones, a doctor who’d once had an office in downtown Steelton. I asked her a few key questions and, in a matter of minutes, located the obituary. She was thrilled.
The conversation pulled at a memory of my own, from many years ago, when I visited Dr. Jones to get a physical for my driver’s permit. I learned to drive on my dad’s car, an old black Rambler with push buttons, and I would later take the exam in my brother’s old ‘58 Pontiac Bonneville. Back then, the state police administered the test—and of course, the officer who got in the car seemed like the meanest person alive, his deep voice causing your heart to pound to the point you thought someone was blowing a horn.
My parents sent me to Dr. Jones by myself, as if to help usher me through the gateway to young adulthood. His office was in a beautiful, gray stone building on N. Front Street, behind an iron gate that opened on a pathway leading to a large wooden door. When he asked why I was there, I quietly explained that I needed a physical to get my driving permit paper signed. He checked my heart with the black tubes of the stethoscope, then my lungs, and then signed my paper and sent me on my way. That was not too bad, I thought, on my way back up to Bessemer Street on that hot June day. But I was so glad it was over.
I love finding out about people and their connection to my little town of Steelton. When I started to research Dr. Jones, I quickly realized what a life he had. He affected the lives of thousands, yet he remains unknown to many in the area, especially the young.
George Albert Jones was born in New York in December 1904. His family moved to Harrisburg some time after his mother died. His father, James, owned James’ Restaurant on Pine Street downtown, where George would work as a waiter for years. He attended the Harrisburg Technical High School for boys, where he played the cornet in the orchestra and band, but, at some point, he abandoned thoughts of being a musician and focused his efforts on a medical career. He may have been inspired by Dr. Charles Crampton, a well-known Harrisburg doctor and one of the physicians for the school’s sports teams. When he graduated, in 1924, his high school yearbook noted that he “expects to enter Howard University, at Washington, D.C., where he will pursue the study of medicine.”
At that time in America, in the era before the Civil Rights movement, to go to college, let alone to become a doctor, was a dream many blacks did not entertain. Slavery was a not-too-distant memory, and Jim Crow laws still reigned in the South. But George was surrounded by eager, aspiring peers. He spent his undergraduate years at Lincoln University, in Chester County, Pa., an institute designed for people of African descent with the motto, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Among his classmates were Thurgood Marshall and Langston Hughes.
After graduating from Howard University Medical School in 1935, George went on to an internship at Freedman’s Hospital. Freedman’s had been established in 1862 as the “Contraband Hospital,” serving slaves and people seeking freedom in the D.C. area. Students of color could only practice on people of color, and Freedman’s gave students a place they could spend their internships, working with the hospital’s African-American patients. Jones became a licensed physician in Pennsylvania on Jan. 22, 1937.
I found notice after notice of Dr. Jones’ civic involvement. He joined a group of African-American doctors in the area who sought to curb the problem of tuberculosis in the black community. They tested children at schools and workers at restaurants and hotels. Dr. Jones was also an avid speaker, constantly seeking to enlighten the community on health issues. He spoke at the Hygienic Civic Club and during Negro Health Week at the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the Y.W.C.A. In 1938, he orchestrated a drive for diphtheria prevention.
He also advocated for social justice in the schools. He tried to get the Steelton school system to let his daughter—Suzanne, the woman who would call me all those years later—attend the mainstream Felton School. Other schools in Steelton had already embraced integration, yet Dr. Jones, despite several attempts, was unsuccessful. Around the same time, he became involved with the Non-Partisan League, which wrote, in an open letter to the school board, that it seemed “very strange that we of Harrisburg should allow segregation and discrimination to exist in our educational system when the radio, the press and liberal-minded commentators throughout the country are bitterly protesting the same.”
One of Dr. Jones’ most notable projects was to raise money for the United Hospital Building Fund for the benefit of Polyclinic Hospital and Harrisburg Hospital. The funds were to be donated in memory of the great African-American scientist George Washington Carver. At the time, Jones said it was the project committee’s aim “to have every Negro resident of the region represented in the fund which will perpetually honor Dr. Carver in the hospitals which are dedicated to the health protection of all.” With the help of area churches and fraternal organizations, he exceeded the campaign’s $10,000 goal.
Jones died Feb. 26, 1992, and is buried at William Howard Day cemetery. His daughter Suzanne told me that he wrote his own obituary, which mentioned he was the first African-American doctor appointed to the medical staff of the former Polyclinic Hospital. Through his lectures, his civic involvement and his practice, Dr. Jones laid the foundation for equal rights in education and health in our community.
Barbara Barksdale is the founder of Friends of Midland, a nonprofit devoted to maintaining the grounds and records of Steelton’s Midland Cemetery.
