Edna Mae Jones does not consider herself a history-maker. But that’s exactly what she is.

In 1947, she was awarded a scholarship to train as a nurse in Britain. The scholarship, established by the British Government and the first of its kind for Bermuda, was to have been an annual one, but only two were handed out.

Still, she went off to Britain, where she qualified as a State Registered Nurse and completed Part One of a midwifery course.

Returning home after four years, having trained at St Giles Hospital in London, she was dismayed to learn that King Edward VII Memorial Hospital still had a ban on the hiring of Black nurses.

Describing herself as someone “who takes everything in stride”, she moved to Plan B. She worked as a private duty nurse, until she was offered a position at the more welcoming Department of Health.

Mrs Jones was born on New Year’s Eve, 1923. On Sunday, she turned 100. She celebrated the milestone with family and friends at a gathering at Thyme Restaurant in Paget.

Mrs Jones enjoys good health, which she attributes to having “a pretty good diet and keeping active.”

A member of Grace Communion International church, her faith is also important to her. On the eve of her 100th birthday, she spoke to The Royal Gazette about her life and career.

Mrs Jones is the fourth of nine children, born to Solomon and Malvena Pearman (née Smith). Three siblings are still living: Minna Scott, 95, now living in Florida, Allan Pearman, 93, and Evelyn Dill, 89.

One of her deceased siblings was John Irving Pearman, a long-time Cabinet minister in the United Bermuda Party government.

She was delivered at home by a midwife, and came of age during a time when household conveniences such as fridges, stoves and televisions were future concepts.

“We had wood stoves or oil stoves, no fridges, you had an ice box,” she recalled. Despite the many advances of today, people did not have to lock their doors.

“People were more trustworthy,” she said. The family spent their earliest years in Spanish Point, but later moved to the neighbourhood that now bears their name, Pearman’s Hill in Warwick. She said her father, who was a mason, built most of the houses there.

She attended primary and Sunday school at St Alban’s on St John’s Road, Pembroke, the present location of the Jewish Community Centre. As there were no cars or buses, most times she walked to school, although she and her siblings would occasionally hitch a ride in the back of a horse and carriage.

She attended high school at The Berkeley Institute, but dropped out in her fourth year when the family moved to Warwick and transportation became an issue.

She found work as a companion to an elderly woman. She was fortunate to be able to resume her education at Millicent Neverson’s school in Pembroke, and graduated with the Cambridge School Certificate.

The Central School headmaster Victor Scott, her maths tutor for the Cambridge exam, then hired her as an assistant teacher at Central. But she always wanted to be a nurse.

When she learnt of British Government’s offer of annual scholarship for a Bermudian nurse trainee, she applied and was successful.

The Bermuda Government rejected Britain’s offer of funding, insisting on paying from local coffers. Parliament approved funding for her scholarship and the second one, which was awarded to Juanita Guishard Packwood.

Then MPs, citing the expense, said nurses could train locally at the Cottage Hospital Nursing Home.

This development was criticised by Henrietta Tucker, a leading suffragette.

She said that the politicians who had rejected Britain’s offer had done Bermudian women “a great disservice”.

In February 1947, Mrs Jones set off for Britain. She sailed from Bermuda to New York, where she boarded the Queen Mary ocean liner, bound for Southampton, England. She was travelling alone.

Asked whether her parents were apprehensive about her travelling solo, she said neighbours had expressed concern. But her mother assured them: “Edna can take care of herself.”

Nearly 80 years later, memories of her years in London are quite vivid. Some wards at St Giles were still out of commission, having been damaged by German bombs during the Second World War.

Six months after her arrival, she represented Bermuda at a garden party at St James Palace where she was presented to Queen Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother.

The garden party was in aid of the British Empire Nurses War Memorial Fund.

A photo of her meeting the Queen ran on the front page of The Royal Gazette.

She was totally unfazed by the prospect of meeting royalty. “I’m not an excitable person,” she said. “I took it all in stride.”

Another memory is of a night on a maternity ward, when she was run off her feet.

Four or five babies were born that night, she said, and she delivered two of them. She wrote her mother every week.

The letter she sent to her mother describing “that crazy night” remains a keepsake.

She did not return home during the four years she lived in London.

She described her student years as “great. No racism. We were all just nurses”.

There was one incident when a patient addressed her with a racial epithet and was severely chastised by her head nurse.

Asking about her reaction on returning home in 1951 and learning that employment at KEMH was not an option, she said: “I was disappointed.”

She added: “I decided that if they weren’t taking nurses, I would have to do something else.

“So I gave my name to some of the doctors, and I got a couple of good private cases. One private case was in Fairylands.

“The man had a boat. I lived in Warwick. He told me to ride down to the ferry dock. His private boat met me and took me across. That was a good case.”

Several months after returning home, MP and future premier E.T. Richards, who was then a member of the Board of Health, informed her of an opening at the health department, which did hire Black nurses.

She worked as a school nurse and in the women’s and children’s clinics.

In 1955, she married Vernon “V.J.” Jones. He was the first Black salesman at Master’s and later moved into insurance.

They had three children, Phillip, Nadine and Patrick. After the birth of Nadine, she gave up her nursing career because she wanted to raise her own children.

KEMH opened its doors to Black nurses in 1958, but she did not consider a move there.

She said: “When the hospital decided to open up a few years later, I said: ‘I am comfortable in the health department. I have no problem here. I am going to stay here’.”

Mrs Jones later worked with her husband at a clothing store he opened in Hamilton.

V.J. Jones, who ran for the Progressive Labour Party in 1972, died in 1995. In addition to her three children, she is grandmother to six.

Of the many changes she has seen in Bermuda in the past century, she is especially grateful to the Progressive Group for their role in dismantling segregation with the 1959 Theatre Boycott.

Asked if she had any general advice for the people of Bermuda, she said: “Have a close relationship with God. He’s the one who gives you peace and calm.”

• Meredith Ebbin was principal researcher for the 2022 film Health-Care Heroines — Black Bermudian Nurses and the Struggle for Equality, which was produced by the Department of Culture and featured Edna Jones