Honoring a Community Healthcare Champion
To many in Bluffton, she was Aunt Jennie. To others, she was the nurse who made sure every child in our community had their vaccinations, especially against intestinal parasites. To U.S. senators, she was their tour guide through the poorest communities, exposing the desperate living conditions of her neighbors. To the Ku Klux Klan, she was a force who defended her health clinic and boss, Dr. Donald Gatch. To her neighbors, she was Miss Kitty, who has left a legacy of serving others. The Town of Bluffton officially renamed its Watershed Management Building the Jennie Kitty Municipal Building, Thursday, September 9.
Jennie Kitty, worked at the former Bluffton Health Clinic at 1261 May River Road, which was, until recently, the town’s Watershed Management Building. For three decades, Kitty tirelessly advocated for health initiatives throughout Bluffton’s African American community and the Lowcountry. She was a champion of community health.
Kitty was a prominent nurse in the Lowcountry’s African American community. She also was a midwife for nearly 40 children, who were born in Bluffton and the region as their mothers were unable to travel to nearest hospital.
She worked at the Bluffton Health Clinic under the supervision of Dr. Donald E. Gatch. Dr. Gatch worked with the region’s underserved communities and, received threats from the Ku Klux Klan because of his work and the attention he brought to the living conditions, malnutrition, and inadequate healthcare in South Carolina. During some of these threats, Kitty mobilized her neighbors to keep watch over the clinic and Dr. Gatch’s family.
Among the work for which she is most renowned was her effort throughout the community to eradicate intestinal parasites (i.e., whipworms). In 1969, she led U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings on a tour of the poor living conditions in Bluffton. This visit and the subsequent national media coverage resulted in establishing the Beaufort-Jasper Comprehensive Health Clinic. Founded in 1970, this clinic still provides health services to the economically challenged residents of the Lowcountry.
Kitty’s motto, derived from the hymn, “If I Can Help Somebody,” was, “If I can help someone as I travel along the way, then my living shall not be in vain.”
Kitty died March 4, 2021. She was 90 years old, and she helped countless people along her journey.
