Myra Smith Kearse

Myra Lyle Smith was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the daughter of T. Parker Smith and Clara Alexander Smith. Her father was an educator, and founded a business college in Richmond. Her mother was also an educator.[1]

She graduated from Howard Academy in 1917,[2] earned a bachelor's degree at Howard University in 1922,[3] and was the only woman in the 1925 graduating class[4] of the Howard University College of Medicine.[5] She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated®.[6]

Kearse was the first African American woman physician in Union County, New Jersey when she began to practice there in 1938.[6] She joined the staff of a Newark hospital during World War II.[7] She held a patent on a "pocket calendar device with punch means" for tracking one's menstrual cycle.[8] She retired from medical practice in 1966.[5]

In 1964,[9] Kearse and Vera Brantley McMillon began collecting and sharing oral histories of African-American life in New Jersey, to mark the state's tercentenary; their work culminated in the publication of Negroes of New Jersey, 1715-1967: A Bibliography.[10] She served on the executive committee of the Union County Anti-Poverty Council,[11][12] until she retired from the council in 1970.[13] She was a founding member of the county's College Women's Club.[14]

Myra Lyle Smith married Robert Freeman Kearse, postmaster of Vauxhall, New Jersey.[15] They had a son Robert A. Kearse, and a daughter Amalya Lyle Kearse, who became a federal judge.[16] Her god-daughter, Gene-Ann Polk Horne, was a noted pediatrician at Harlem Hospital for many years.[17] The Myra Smith Kearse Community Center in Union County, and a scholarship fund, were named in her honor.[18] She died in 1982, aged 82, from a heart attack at her home in the Vauxhall section of Union Township, Union County, New Jersey.[7][19]