Institution

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Eastern Shore region.

<div>A native of Pungoteague, in Accomack County, Susie May Ames (January 10, 1888–July 30, 1969) became an influential historian. After graduating from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1908 with a major in English and a minor in Latin, she taught in public schools in Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, and Kentucky until 1923, when she joined the Randolph-Macon Woman's College faculty. Like many other professional women of her generation, she never married. Ames continued her education while she worked. She received a master's degree from Columbia University in 1926 and a doctorate in history in 1940 with a published dissertation entitled<i> Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>One of only a small number of women with a doctorate in history at that time, Ames taught at Randolph-Macon Woman's College until she retired in 1955. She published one of the first scholarly studies of the Eastern Shore during the Civil War, but her work concentrated on Virginia's early colonial period and its people. Ames edited and published two volumes of seventeenth-century Eastern Shore county court records, the first of them in 1954 in the prestigious American Legal Records series that the American Historical Association sponsored. Ames's five books and her scholarly articles in professional journals made major contributions to understanding the social and cultural life of men, women, and children in seventeenth-century Virginia.</div><div><br></div><div>Ames was a founder of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society and in 1964 received a certificate of commendation from the American Association for State and Local History.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

A native of Pungoteague, Susie May Ames was an influential historian of Virginia's Eastern Shore. In the 1950s she helped establish the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society, headquartered at Ker Place in Onancock.

Photograph of Susie May Ames, courtesy of the Library of Virginia. 

Susie May Ames

<div>A lifelong resident of Tangier Island, Elizabeth Inez Parks Pruitt (b. 1962) serves the community as its primary medical officer. Under the tutelage of Dr. David Nichols, the island’s primary care physician who commuted to Tangier once a week, she ultimately became a physician assistant and now operates the local health clinic.</div><div><br></div><div>Known for its distinctive dialect, Tangier Island is isolated in the northern reaches of the Chesapeake Bay and can be reached only by aircraft or boat. It is home to a dwindling community of watermen; providing immediate medical care has always been a challenge. Pruitt—who can trace her lineage on the island back several generations—became intrigued by the medical profession early in life when a doctor stayed with her family during his occasional visits to Tangier from the Eastern Shore. She entered the medical field as a dental assistant in 1984, and in 1987 began her long relationship with Nichols as his assistant. In 2001 Pruitt entered the physician assistant program at the University of Maryland–Eastern Shore, at first commuting almost daily by boat. She received her diploma in 2006.</div><div><br></div><div>Beginning in 2004, Pruitt worked with fellow residents, Nichols, and many supporters to replace the island’s ramshackle clinic with a new $1.7 million complex. After Nichols’s death in 2010, Pruitt became the primary health care provider to Tangier’s roughly 500 residents. “I enjoy making a difference in the lives of others. The world should be a better place because a person has lived.”</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by the 2011–2012 Tenth-Grade class of Duane Crockett, Tangier Combined School, Tangier.<br><br></i><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

Physician Assistant Elizabeth Inez Pruitt fills a vital need in the isolated community of Tangier by serving as its primary health care provider at the island's David B. Nichols Health Center.

Photograph of Inez Pruitt, courtesy of Laura Emery/Cooperative Living Magazine.

Entries on This Tour

Virginia Women in History - Eastern Shore

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