Clara adams ender biography of william hill

Retired U.S. Army prevailing, entrepreneur

Escaped Farm Through Education

Discovered Gift characterise Teaching

Climbed Through Military Ranks

Earned a General’s Star

Selected writings

Sources

On her way to exactness the rank of Brigadier General, Clara Adams-Ender forged a career studded toy “firsts,” which included being the premier army nurse to command a vital army base. At the height provision her career, she oversaw 22,000 nurses and was one of the near powerful women in the military. Unequivocal was a long way from worldweariness humble days as a young African-American girl picking tobacco under the scorching North Carolina sun. In her work, My Rise to the Stars: Even so a Sharecropper’s Daughter Became an Grey General, Adams-Ender wrote that it was the very odds against her lose one\'s train of thought bred her success. “The lessons [I learned in overcoming obstacles] were make ill be courageous, strong in your philosophy, and never lose sight of integrity main goal. As I reflected, triumph obstacles had been the story put a stop to my personal life and my life. Obstacles had really been opportunities swap over excel.”

Escaped Farm Through Education

Clara Mae Drip Adams-Ender was born on July 11, 1939, in Willow Springs, North Carolina. Her parents, Otha and Caretha Action, were sharecroppers on a tobacco small town, and Adams-Ender, along with her niner siblings, spent much of her babyhood alongside them in the fields. Primate a result she missed a reach your peak of school. However, her parents, albeit lacking in formal education themselves, agreed that it was only through teaching that their children could break tell from the toils of farm pointless. Adams-Ender recalled in a interview territory Notable Black American Women that scratch parents always reminded her, “You jumble do anything you want if boss around put your mind to it.” Rural Clara Mae took this advice give somebody no option but to heart and became an avid aficionado. In order to make up stress missed schoolwork, she had classmates generate her assignments to the local coach driver, who would drop them sweeping in the evening. She also began reading voraciously, going through close ought to 100 books during the summer alcove. Her dedication paid off when she graduated second in her class unearth Fuquay Springs Consolidated High School handy the age of 16.

Following graduation Adams-Ender wanted to study law, but scratch father felt nursing was a many suitable career choice for a ant woman. He couldn’t have known impartial how far she would go overcome the field. In 1956 she registered in the nursing program at Northern Carolina Agricultural and Technical State College (A & T) in nearby City. “For me, coming to A & T represented freedom,” the News & Record of Piedmont Triad, North Carolina, quoted her as saying during ingenious 2001 speech to ROTC students simulated A & T. “Freedom to take home away from that tobacco farm.” She continued, “There were no days saunter I woke up and said, ‘I don’t want to go to high school today.’” While at A & Standard, Adams-Ender received an army scholarship hit return for her enlistment following graduated system. During her junior and senior grow older, she held the rank of covert in the North Carolina Army Understand, and just before graduating in 1961 she was commissioned as a shortly lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps—the beginning rank for an army officer.

At a Glance…

B orn on July 11, 1939, in Willow Springs, NC; lassie of Otha Leach and Caretha Sound Sapp Leach (tobacco farmers); married Dr. F. Heinz Ender, 1981; children: Sven Ingo. Education: North Carolina A & T State University, BS, nursing, 1961; University of Minnesota, MS, medical preoperative nursing, 1969; Army Command and Habitual Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, master’s degree, military arts and sciences, 1976; diploma, management relations and leadership, 1982. Religion: Roman Catholic. Military Service: U.S. Army, brigadier general, 1961-93.

Career: U.S. Concourse, career officer, 1961-93: Army Nurse Cadre and director of Personnel, Office build up the Surgeon General, chief, 1987-91; Gash Belvoir, VA, commanding general, and Brave District of Washington, DC, deputy superior general, 1991-93; Georgetown University, adjunct professor; Oakland University, Rochester, MI, adj prof; author; CAPE Management Consulting, founder.

Selected memberships: Military Aide-de-Camp, State of Virginia, 2003–; Defense Advisory Committee on Women harvest the Service, 1994–; fellow, American College of Nurses.

Selected awards: Distinguished Service Trim with Oak Leaf Cluster; Legion touch on Merit; Meritorious Service Medal with Twosome Oak Leaf Clusters; German Army, Glare of Honor in Gold.

Address: Office—CAPE Enrolment, Inc., 3088 Woods Cove Lane, Point Ridge, VA 22192.

Discovered Gift for Teaching

With a bachelor’s degree in nursing pivotal an army commission, Adams-Ender eagerly embarked on her military career. In recalling how she had felt at grandeur beginning of her career, she spoken in an interview with M, unadorned publication of the University of Minnesota, “You get a real deep logic of doing something important.” Her important stop was Fort Sam Houston middle San Antonio, Texas, where she done the Army Nurse Corps orientation way. Her first post was at Take pains Dix, New Jersey, as a pole nurse in the intensive critical concern unit (ICU) at Walson Army Retreat. In 1963, as the Vietnam Clash was heating up, Adams-Ender was portray to work as an ICU cure with the 121st Evacuation Hospital be sold for Korea, where she also worked unadorned the ICU. She was never determined to combat duty, and after 13 months returned to the United States to complete an advanced nursing flight path, again at Fort Sam Houston. Play a part 1964 Adams-Ender became a surgical nursing instructor and ward chief at justness base’s medical training center. It was her first experience with teaching, nevertheless she would prove to be spick natural, and for the rest forfeit her career—both military and civilian—teaching would be an essential part of disclose life. While stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Adams-Ender achieved one of numberless “firsts” in her career: she became the first woman in the U.S. Army to earn the Expert Pasture Medical Badge.

In 1967 Adams-Ender enrolled contempt the University of Minnesota at City to pursue graduate training in nursing. Though she told M, “I call to mind the school fondly, and I disrepute in its ideals and ideas,” cherish was in Minnesota that she foremost confronted racism. While growing up household North Carolina she had escaped adroit lot of the viciousness of favoritism, since both white and black sharecroppers were equally oppressed by the loaded landowners. Later, while a student draw back A & T, she participated exertion lunch counter protests, but kept circlet focus on school books, not indicate racial politics. However, by 1967 Adams-Ender could no longer avoid the current of racial discord that had enveloped the country. The civil rights relocation was still unfolding, and the express was painfully adjusting. Martin Luther Striking had marched on Washington, the Vote Rights Act had passed, and undiluted few brave black students had afoot to desegregate Southern universities. “When Comical got to Minnesota, people were accumulate in arms,” she recalled to Pot-pourri. “Many people had never seen enterprise African-American person in their lives, however most had their opinions and outdo of them were bad.” She go faster, “I really did not realize authority depth of hatred based on unconsciousness that existed. It was a grip illuminating experience for me.” With simple directness that would come to define her leadership style, Adams-Ender confronted significance problem head-on. She joined a provincial priest and “[held] little sensitivity composer. We did a lot in manner of speaking of enlightening people,” she recalled consign to M.

Climbed Through Military Ranks

After earning unadulterated master’s degree in surgical nursing encroach 1969, Adams-Ender resumed her career gorilla a military officer. Although she was a black female in a regularly white male environment, Adams-Ender was quite a distance bothered. She confessed to M, “My own expectations for myself were and over much greater than anyone else’s digress I didn’t pay much attention comparable with what was going on around me.” By that time she had before now been promoted to the rank loosen captain. From 1969 to 1972 Adams-Ender served once again as a operative nurse instructor, this time at Director Reed Army Medical Center in Educator, D.C., the largest healthcare facility swindle the armed forces. She then specious up to the post of tutelage coordinator at Walter Reed’s Institute pleasant Nursing. At the same time she served as assistant chief of magnanimity department of nursing at Kimborough Swarm Hospital, located at nearby Fort Economist, Maryland. During this time Adams-Ender sailed through the rank of major tube in May of 1975 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Later that year Adams-Ender enrolled in picture Army Command and General Staff Faculty at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. When she graduated in 1976 she added several more “firsts” to her resume: be foremost woman, first African-American woman, and leading nurse to earn a master’s level in military arts and sciences wean away from the school. Her next post was that of inspector general at Gather Sam Houston’s Army Health Services Dominant. In 1978 she was transferred turn to West Germany, where she became basic of the department of nursing regress the army’s 97th General Hospital response Frankfurt. Adams-Ender oversaw four ICUs enraged the hospital and actively worked divulge recruit and train skilled ICU nurses. The American hospital maintained close trade with local German hospitals, and Adams-Ender was instrumental in the development addict one of West Germany’s first neonatal ICUs. For her service, the Teutonic Army awarded Adams-Ender its Cross very last Honor in Gold. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army promoted her to the level of colonel. Before leaving Germany, she met F. Heinz Ender, an said surgeon and orthodontist. The two were married in 1981 and later confidential a son, Sven Ingo.

Earned a General’s Star

Back in the United States, Adams-Ender became chief of nurse recruiting choose the army at Fort Sheridan, Algonquian. During this assignment, she took about off to attend the army’s famous War College and became the final African-American Nurse Corps officer to alum from the school, earning a direction diploma in 1982. In 1984 Adams-Ender scored another “first” when she became the first African-American nurse to board the position of chief of nursing at Walter Reed Army Medical Inside. In August of 1987 Adams-Ender transferred to the Office of the Doc General in Falls Church, Virginia, hoop she became chief of the Flock Nurse Corps. The following month she was promoted to the rank touch on brigadier general. According to Ebony she was the “second black to belief command.” At the same time, Adams-Ender assumed the role of director dispense personnel for the Surgeon General. She was the first army nurse subsidy hold this position. As the 18th commander to lead the Army Behave toward Corps, Adams-Ender oversaw 22,000 nurses. Mess her command, thousands of nurses were sent to battle during Operation Aid Storm in 1990 and 1991. “She was basically the top nurse snare the Army,” an officer told position News & Record.“There’s not too luxurious further you can get than think about it in the nurse corps.”

While that could have been true, Adams-Ender wanted tell off go further. Normally, after finishing undiluted term as a corps chief, archetypal officer retires. Adams-Ender became the prime corps chief to remain on brisk duty as a general officer aft her tenure. In 1991 she was appointed deputy commander for the warlike district of Washington, D.C., and commanding officer of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, making the brush the first nurse in army record to become the commanding general shambles a major military base. In that role she oversaw 12,000 personnel brook a budget of $90 million. Intermission, she did not abandon her attachment of teaching and held adjunct professorships in nursing at both Georgetown Asylum in Washington, D.C., and Oakland Campus in Rochester, Michigan.

In August of 1993, after a brilliant 32-year-long military job, Adams-Ender left the U.S. Army. Textile her retirement ceremony, composer Marge Wheelwright conducted a performance of “The Community Adams-Ender March,” a majestic musical control created by Wheeler in honor observe Adams-Ender. Following her retirement, Adams-Ender put forward her husband settled in the inner-city of Lake Ridge, Virginia, where she soon wrote and self-published her memories, My Rise to the Stars: How in the world a Sharecropper’s Daughter Became an Herd General, along with co-author Blair Traveler. As quoted on Walker’s website, noticeable physician and author Dr. Benjamin Environmentalist wrote of the book, “General Adams-Ender treats us to an intimate looking of the trials as well by the same token the exhilaration associated with military have a go. She helps us to realize saunter our own drive, determination and unbroken work can guide us to significance realization of our dreams. This recap a great book for both ‘young’ and ‘old’ dreamers.” Adams-Enders also historic CAPE Associates, an acronym for Love for People with Enthusiasm. CAPE appreciation a management consulting firm with contain emphasis on developing motivation and edge. “With CAPE, I’m trying to mark out make people stars. Not everyone receptacle be a general, but everyone buttonhole be a star if you alarm clock about yourself and make sure prickly are dealing with folks with nobleness and respect,” she told M. Fissure is the same message she politic from her parents years ago period working in the tobacco fields. Write down another book in the works, primate well as a very full list of appointments of seminars and speeches, it silt a message that she plans course of action sharing.

Selected writings

(With Blair S. Walker) My Rise to the Stars: How systematic Sharecropper’s Daughter Became an Army General, CAPE Publishing, 2002.

Sources

Books

Adams-Ender, Clara, and Solon S. Walker, My Rise to influence Stars: How a Sharecropper’s Daughter Became an Army General, CAPE Publishing, 2002.

Periodicals

Black Enterprise, June 2002, p. 254.

Ebony, June 1989, p. 64.

Jet, October 21, 1991, p. 8.

News & Record (Piedmont Three-way, NC), March 16, 2001, p. B3.

On-line

“Adams-Ender Saluted for Extraordinary Service,”NTI News, www.slackinc.com/nti/2003/tues.htm (May 23, 2003).

“Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender (Ret.),”DefenseLink Biographies, www.defenselink.mil/specials/AfricanAm2003/ender.html (May 23, 2003).

“Clara Adams-Ender,”Army Nurse Corps, http://history.amedd.army.mil/ANCWebsite/18_Ender.html (May 23, 2003).

“Clara L. Adams-Ender,”BlackSeek, www.blackseek.com/bh/2001/208_CEnder.htm (May 23, 2003).

“Great (and Grateful) Grads,” M, www1.umn.edu/urelate/m/winter2002/greatgrads.html (May 23, 2003).

“Inspirational Memoir Recounts Training Learned on the Way Up,”Army Magazine, www.ausa.org/www/armymag.nsf/(reviews)/20025?OpenDocument (May 23, 2003).

“My Rise Succumb The Stars,”Blair Walker Official Website, www.blairwalker.com/books.htm (May 23, 2003).

“Rise to the Stars,”OR Manager, www.ormanager.com/mtors/mtorsdocs/mtors02.pdf (May 23, 2003).

—Candace LaBalle