[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 31, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1836-H1837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              A HISTORICAL HEALER: MARY JANE LAWSON BROWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a 
historical healer, Mary Jane Lawson Brown, who has been considered to 
be one of the most important figures in the history of health care in 
Palatka, Florida.
  Born in 1882, Mary Jane Lawson was an incredible person by any 
measure, let alone an historic and extraordinary woman. In 1915, Mary 
Jane Lawson enrolled in training school for embalming, one of the only 
two women at the

[[Page H1837]]

school. Completing her courses of study in the same year, she became 
the first African American licensed to perform funerals in the State of 
Florida.
  In 1918, she opened the Mary Lawson Sanatorium. At first, the 
sanatorium cared for the African American residents of the Palatka 
area. However, by 1922, the sanatorium was caring for people of all 
races in a community desperately short of health care facilities.
  The 35-bed Mary Lawson Sanatorium, later to be renamed the Mary 
Lawson Hospital during the 1930s, housed x-ray equipment, a laboratory, 
and surgical facilities. For a long period in Putnam County history, 
the Mary Lawson Hospital was the only location in the county equipped 
for physicians to perform surgery.
  As the owner and administrator of the primary health care center in 
Putnam County throughout the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, 
World War II, and the 1950s, Mary Jane Lawson has been regarded as a 
blessing to Palatka.
  In 1925, Mary Jane Lawson and her close friend, Mary McLeod Bethune, 
started the first chapter of the Advancement of Colored Women, which 
continues to be a large national organization today. Mary McLeod 
Bethune founded the Bethune Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, 
and lived in Palatka during the 1920s.
  During this time period, Mary Jane Lawson provided assistance on 
several efforts to attain funding for the college that Cookman had 
started. This was yet another way Ms. Lawson gave back to the 
community.
  Mary Jane Lawson lived to be 79 years of age. The efforts of Ms. 
Lawson extended to her granddaughter, Mary Lawson Brown. Ms. Brown and 
her son, Theodore Brown II, are both licensed funeral directors who 
live and own the Lawson & Son Funeral Home; and it has remained one of 
the largest and oldest business in the Palatka community.
  As we celebrate Women's History Month, I ask that my colleagues join 
me as I applaud this historical healer who shares her talents among the 
residents of the great State of Florida.

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