A Black Doctor and an Abortion in 1941

I’m warning you now, this story ends badly.

But let’s start with the good parts. Early in the twentieth century, a young black man named Allen B. Wilson graduated from Leonard College, the medical school of Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. Founded in 1865, Shaw was the oldest black university in the South, and Leonard College was the first four-year medical program—black or white—in the nation. Around 1909, Dr. Wilson, a native of Virginia, moved his family to Hagerstown, MD, bought property, and set up a practice on Jonathan Street, serving the city’s African American community.[1]

Completing the family at 243 or 245 Jonathan Street were Wilson’s wife Mildred and their three children—daughters Zelma (b. 1906) and Iris (b. 1907), and son Allen D. (born 1908).[2] Dr. Wilson became a pillar of the black community. He joined civic groups, was active in the Republican party, and in 1929 joined several other black professionals to found an undertaking company.[3] Zelma grew up to be a teacher.[4]

There were sorrows and heartaches too. In the early twentieth century, children were all too vulnerable to early death, and the Wilsons lost their little son Allen.[5] Daughter Iris would die as a young woman.[6] Given these tragedies, it’s hard to believe the Wilson household was a happy one, despite their prominent place in the community.

The Community Doctor

Dr. Wilson’s work is largely undocumented. Only occasionally did his name occur in the newspaper—as when, for example, he was called, too late, to help seven-year-old Elsa May Furley, found “unconscious and hopelessly burned” at her home on West North Street in March, 1913.[7] We also find him signing the death certificates of black residents of Hagerstown throughout the first few decades of the century, faithfully recording the causes of their demise. These people had been his patients, individuals he knew and cared for, not only in their final illnesses, but over many years.[8] By his own estimation he delivered about two thousand babies over the course of his career; he later said he had “many white patients” and delivered many white babies.[9]

Dr. Wilson’s medical career declined in the mid-1930s, when he contracted one of the terrible diseases of his time, tuberculosis. Within a few years his case was called “advanced” and “active,” affecting the “lungs and larynx, complicated by diabetes.” By 1940 he described himself as “unable to work.” Medical opinion at the time held that tuberculosis should be treated with plenty of fresh air; Dr. Wilson added “a specially built porch [onto] his residence where he spends all or most of his time.”[10]

The Fateful Patient

Despite his debilitating illness, Wilson was still a doctor, and it seems that patients sought him out. In November of 1940, a young white woman named Frances Jane Peacher came to Dr. Wilson for an abortion. She was single and in need of help; he helped her—according to her later testimony. The following June (in 1941), at age 21, she married. In July 1941 she appeared again on Allen Wilson’s doorstep, again seeking an abortion. Again—as she later testified—he performed the procedure. Her husband, Arthur Stanley, would corroborate her story. The couple paid Wilson $210 for the two abortions.[11]

Unfortunately for all concerned, the police were watching the second time—presumably because someone had tipped them off. Two officers arrested the couple after they left the doctor’s office, and then they arrested Dr. Wilson and searched his premises. Here, they said, they had found “an empty tube of salve that is reputedly used for performing abortions.”[12]

Dr. Wilson was freed on a $5000 bond until his case went to trial in November.[13] At trial, he firmly denied that he had performed an abortion. And yet his version of events leaves me thinking he probably did, and that—finding himself in the position of doctors today for whom abortions are part of health care—he wanted both to plead innocent and defend his actions.

In Wilson’s telling of the story, the Stanleys had come to him because of a pregnancy crisis. Examining Frances Stanley, “he found an arm of the fetus had become misplaced and … he corrected the condition according to approved medical practice.… [But] he knew at the time the fetus was dead and that an abortion [i.e., a miscarriage] was imminent.” According to Wilson’s testimony, Frances Stanley then miscarried “within minutes.” So far, a straightforward story. But in court Wilson also argued that “he had no other recourse than to treat her as he did” and that “his act of mercy … saved the young woman’s life.”[14] These statements hint at his having, indeed, performed an abortion.

Race was also an issue in the trial. The prosecution claimed that “white people do not usually go to a colored physician.” In other words, they implied, Frances Stanley would only go to a black doctor for the illegal procedure of abortion, not for a genuine medical emergency. Three white doctors testified for the prosecution.[15]

The Verdict

The jury could not agree on a verdict, so the case was retried in February 1942. This time Dr. Wilson was convicted and sentenced to three years in state prison. He appealed the sentence, citing his serious illness and his “advanced age” of 67. His lawyer argued that “three years in the penitentiary would be the equivalent to a life sentence and that his removal from his home … might result in complications from which he might not recover.”[16] The petition was denied, and it proved prophetic. In July 1942 Dr. Wilson reported to the State Penal Farm at Roxbury, where there was a tuberculosis hospital. Seven months later he was dead.[17]

All these years later, we can’t know exactly what happened in Dr. Wilson’s office on that August night in 1941. But the private event that became public has deep resonance for our times. As we watch abortion procedures being outlawed in states across America, Dr. Wilson’s fate is no longer just a sad historical anecdote. His successors in many states—though thankfully not Maryland—are faced every day with pregnancy crises where the standard of care includes procedures that are now outlawed or of questionable legality. Doctors are afraid or unable to care for their patients who are having miscarriages or who simply need or want abortions. Dr. Wilson’s fate reminds us of the stark danger facing those providers who put their patients first when the law turns its back on freedom and mercy.

 

Edited 8/27/22 to correct “oldest university” to “oldest black university.”

 

Notes

[1] Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, May 3, 1913; Hagerstown Morning Herald, June 10, 1909; Census, 1910.

[2] Census, 1910. Different sources give both 243 and 245 Jonathan Street as the doctor’s address. They may have lived at both addresses at different times.

[3] Morning Herald, Dec. 4, 1909; Afro-American Ledger, May 3, 1913; Morning Herald, May 1, 1929.

[4] Census, 1930.

[5] Census, 1920.

[6] She is not listed as a surviving family member in Dr. Wilson’s obituary.

[7] Morning Herald, March 12, 1913.

[8] The death certificates are online at the Maryland State Archives, http://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=death.

[9] Hagerstown Daily Mail, November 28, 1941, p. 1.

[10] Morning Herald, June 24, 1942; 1940 Census.

[11] Morning Herald, November 28, 1941, p. 24; “Wilson v. State, 26 A.2d 770 (Md. 1942),” Court Listener, www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3484728/wilson-v-state/.

[12] Hagerstown Daily Mail, November 28, 1941, p. 1.

[13] Daily Mail, November 14, 1941, p. 1.

[14] Daily Mail, November 28, 1941, p. 1; Morning Herald, February 25, 1942, p. 1.

[15] Daily Mail, November 28, 1941, p. 1; Morning Herald, February 25, 1942, p. 1.

[16] Morning Herald, June 24, 1942, p. 5. Wilson also appealed the conviction itself, unsuccessfully; “Wilson v. State, 26 A.2d 770 (Md. 1942),” Court Listener, www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3484728/wilson-v-state/.

[17] Morning Herald, July 10, 1942, p. 1; Morning Herald, February 22, 1943, p. 10.