Sally Palmer Thomason - The Power of One: Sister Anne Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic

THE POWER OF ONE

Sister Anne Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic

Sally Palmer Thomason
with Jean Carter Fisher

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright 2020 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Thomason, Sally Palmer, 1959 author. | Fisher, Jean Carter, author.

Title: The power of one : Sister Anne Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic / Sally Palmer Thomason with Jean Carter Fisher.

Other titles: Willie Morris books in memoir and biography.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2020. | Series: Willie Morris books in memoir and biography | Includes appendices. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020011791 (print) | LCCN 2020011792 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496829160 (hardback) | ISBN 9781496829177 (epub) | ISBN 9781496829184 (epub) | ISBN 9781496829191 (pdf) | ISBN 9781496829153 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Brooks, Anne, Sister, 1938Biography. | Women physiciansMississippiBiography. | Osteopathic physiciansMississippiBiography. | NunsUnited StatesBiography. |

BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women | LCGFT: Biographies.

Classification: LCC R692 .T46 2020 (print) | LCC R692 (ebook) | DDC 610.92 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011791

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011792

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Give me a lever and a place to stand
and I will move the world.
Archimedes

PREFACE

This is a story of two opposing powersthe personal, professional, and spiritual power of Sister Anne Brooks, a dynamic Catholic nun and doctor of osteopathy, matched against the horrific power of poverty and racism in a small, dying Mississippi hamlet. Sister Annes power is grounded in her conviction that every individual truly matters. After becoming a nun as a teenager, she taught in parochial schools for nineteen years before becoming an osteopathic physician when she was forty-three years old and was hired by the Tutwiler Medical Clinic. The clinic had been closed for five years, because no physician was willing to serve in the desperately impoverished desolation surrounding that community. But to know Anne Brookss story is to know that Tutwiler, Mississippi, one of the poorest places in the United States, was the place where Anne Brooks used the Archimedean lever of her personal power.

She served as the clinics medical director for thirty-four years, not only bringing health and hope to hundreds of sick and hurting individuals but also activating new energy in a dying community. Her vision brought light and healing into the darkness of lost hope. When Anne turned seventy-nine in 2017, she took down her medical shingle and moved to be with other retired nuns in the Sister of St. Josephs Provincial House in Latham, New York. Her church and her faith are the bedrock of her existence. Yet, looking into her background, one sees this was not always so. Sister Annes personal story took some challenging twists that might, in another life, have led to abject defeat. Her formative years certainly do not point to the woman she would become with so many accolades and awards beside her name. But for the first seventeen years of Anne Brookss life, her name was not Anne. Her birth name was Kathryn Vreeland Brooks, and her family and all of her friends called her Kitty. From 1938 until 1955 she was Kathryn Kitty Brooks. She became Sister Anne Eucharista Brooks when she took her Catholic vows in 1957, and in 1982 she also became Dr. Anne Brooks, DO, when she graduated from medical school.

The long list of Anne Brookss accomplishments and awards is amazing. Since the list is so varied, one is tempted to askwho really is Anne Brooks? Is she the soft-spoken nun who taught grammar school for years or the effective clinic doctor who oversaw a staff that treated close to nine hundred patients a month? Is she the sometimes droll jokester, the charismatic fund-raiser, or the first woman chief of staff of the Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center? Is she the highly articulate trailblazer, whom local and national media, including 60 Minutes and People magazine, sought out to interview, or the comforting presence at the bed of a sick or dying patient?

Like a kaleidoscope, her life reflects a different image at every turn. Yet there are other facets of Anne Brooks that one does not see when looking only at the images from her public life. The kaleidoscope must take another turn to capture the rich, sometimes conflicted private side that is revealed in the personal journals she shared for the writing of this book. These journals tell of the discouragement and wracking despair Anne felt at times but never voiced aloud. Other, near-lyrical entries capture her probing questions, her personal longings, and her deep faith.

Throughout this book are many, many passages using Anne Brookss own words lifted from her personal journals, our in-depth interviews over this past year, dozens of newspaper and magazine articles written about her, and the clinics own newsletter. It is of particular note that in all of these interviews and articles, she never identified or referred to an individual by his or her race. In her interactions with others, Anne Brooks related to what was beneath the color of their skin.

In many ways this book is Anne Brookss personal memoir. It is designed to capture her voice, her memories, and her writings enhanced and made more complete by remembrances of those who know her well or had interviewed her in the past. It is a word portrait of a truly remarkable woman whose life proves the power of one.

SETTING THE STAGE

Hope is a gift that has been given to me. I would like to pass it on. I had a need to give my life to people who needed it, a need to bring hope to people who didnt have it, to share the gift of health that I had been given, and to share my experience of God.

Sister Anne Brooks, DO

Carl Mungenast, a self-proclaimed, practical-minded, no-nonsense businessman, is a longtime ardent supporter of Anne Brooks and her mission. He recently recalled a life-changing program he saw on