Inelle Barber, pioneering nurse

INELLE ELIZABETH Richardson Barber was a pioneer.

Growing up in Jim Crow South Carolina in the '20s and '30s, she was among the first class of 10 African-American women to graduate as registered nurses in the state.

In the early '40s, Inelle and two other women were the first African-American registered nurses to be hired by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Then, in 1947, she was appointed head nurse at the old Jewish Hospital, in Philadelphia, the first African-American head nurse in a white-run hospital in Pennsylvania.

Inelle Barber, a nurse for more than 51 years, a world traveler and a woman known for her stylish wardrobe, died Thursday. She was 92 and was living in Elkins Park but had formerly lived in East Falls.

"She was an old-style Southern lady," said her son James H. Barber. "She was classy and dignified. Nobody swore around her, and I was expected to hold the door for her when she got into my car.

"She used to say, 'I'm here to serve humanity,' and she really believed it. She loved being an RN."

Inelle was generous with her time and special talent for healing. She would look in on neighbors who were ill or had been injured and help treat them.

"She actually did physical therapy for a neighbor who had a stroke," her son said. "She would tell her, 'You can make it!' That's the kind of person she was."

She liked nothing better than to hop into a car and head for the casinos of Atlantic City. That is, when she wasn't bopping off to faraway countries, including Russia, Israel, Egypt, Italy, or, nearer to home, Mexico and the Caribbean. She also enjoyed traveling back to South Carolina to visit family.

Inelle was proud of her African-American heritage and made sure that her sons knew about black history and the men and women who made it great. She was a firm believer in education.

"I knew in grade school I was going to college," her son said, "because of her."

She was also a staunch believer in good manners.

"I asked her how to approach a girl at a dance," her son said, "and she said, go up to her and say, 'May I have the pleasure of this dance?' Can you imagine me saying that? But that was the way she was."

Inelle was born in Columbia, S.C., one of the six children of the Rev. Robert Richardson and Cornelia Smith Richardson. She attended Waverly Elementary School and Booker T. Washington High School, in Columbia.

In 1938, she graduated as the salutatorian from Columbia Hospital School of Nursing, where she and her nine classmates became the first black registered nurses in the state.

She married Howard B. Barber, an all-American in football at Allen University, in Columbia, in 1939. They moved to Philadelphia in 1941.

Inelle ran into her share of racism over the years. When she was appointed head nurse at Jewish Hospital, now the Albert Einstein Medical Center, there was grumbling from the other nurses and one resigned.

But her compassion and skills overcame whatever opposition she ran into. She retired in 1989 as a certified psychiatric nurse therapist for the Veterans Administration.

When her son James and his wife, Rosemary, got married 41 years ago, Inelle helped pick out the wedding dress, which was so elegant, "people still talk about it," James said.

A lifelong Catholic, "she loved her religion," her son said.

"She liked people," her son said. "She was a kind, loving, generous, warm and wise mother, grandmother, mother-in-law and loyal friend."

Her husband died in 1962. Besides her son James, she is survived by another son, Isaac, and three grandchildren.

Services: Funeral Mass 10 a.m. Friday at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, 43rd and Wallace streets. Friends may call at 9 a.m. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Cheltenham. *