Lola Nydia Vassall (August 26, 1906 – September 26, 2002) was a Jamaican-American physician.

Early life and education

Vassall was born in

Saint Catherine Parish, Jamaica Saint Catherine () is a parish in the south east of Jamaica. It is located in the county of Middlesex, and is one of the island's largest and most economically valued parishes because of its many resources. It includes the first capital of Jam ...

, the daughter of William Featherstone Vassall and Septina Creary Vassall. She moved to New York City with her family in 1917. Her father and her older sister Lurline helped establish the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing. She graduated from Washington Irving High School, and finished pharmacy school at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

in 1932. She earned her medical degree at Howard University in 1936.

Career

Vassall served internships at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. and at

Harlem Hospital Harlem Hospital Center, branded as NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, is a 282-bed, public teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University. It is located at 506 Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City and was founded on April 18, 1887. ...

. She had a private practice in New York City. After she married in 1950, she worked as a civilian physician at

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

hospitals in Vienna, Washington, D.C., Monterey, California, and finally at

Letterman Army Hospital The Letterman Army Hospital, established around 1898 and redesignated as the Letterman Army Medical Center (LAMC) in 1969, was a US Army facility at the Presidio of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, US. It was decommissioned in 1994 ...

in San Francisco, California. Vassall was a charter life member of the Howard University Medical Alumni Association (HUMAA). Her cousin Randall Dudley Bloomfield, also a physician, cited her as an early influence in his career.

Personal life

Vassall became a United States citizen by

naturalization Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

in 1939. She married a fellow Howard alumnus and physician, Lindley R. Mordecai, in 1950, in New York City. They divorced in 1970, in San Francisco. She died in 2002, in San Francisco, at the age of 96.

References

External links

A 1940 photograph of Lola Vassall and her father
taken by Joe Schwartz, at

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (stylized as gettyimages) is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three mark ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vassall, Lola N. 1906 births 2002 deaths American people of Jamaican descent Howard University alumni African-American women physicians