The life and ministry of the first African-American Seventh-day Adventist medical doctor was one of constant motion!

Charlotte Isbell was born in 1876 in Virginia, but was raised in Columbus, Ohio. Her family moved in order to escape violence and racial prejudice following the American Civil War. She was known to her friends and family as “Lottie.” When she was 20, Lottie and four other family members became Adventists.

She wanted to be a teacher and was planning to work in public schools. But Lottie’s new church family had a suggestion: Why not use her gifts to study at the Adventist Nurses’ Training School in Battle Creek, Michigan?

Lottie agreed. When she completed the nursing program, the well-known Dr. John Harvey Kellogg encouraged her to study medicine at the American Medical Missionary College. Lottie followed his advice and graduated at the top of her class, becoming the first African-American Adventist medical doctor!

She opened a sanitarium in Nashville, Tennessee, but the community wasn’t interested in the natural remedies she offered. This led Lottie to accept a call to serve as the resident physician at the Oakwood Manual Training School in Alabama. While there, she was able to open a program for nurses at Oakwood College, which is now known as Oakwood University.

It was about this time that she married Pastor David Blake. They’d been writing letters back and forth for some time. After they married, they moved to Nashville. That’s when Lottie re-established the Rock City Sanitarium she’d opened years before and David pastored a church while studying medicine.

From there, the Blakes accepted a call to mission in Panama. For four years, the two physicians worked hard as self-supporting medical missionaries. Together, they raised up a church, creating yet another opportunity to serve their community. Lottie cared for and taught their five children as well.

While there was a lot of work to do in Panama, the family realized that the conditions in the area were affecting their health. They headed to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to continue their missionary work. They started another church and provided medical services to the community.

After a few years, they went back to the United States, with plans to continue their ministry in the American South. Unfortunately, David caught pneumonia and died. Lottie and her children were heartbroken.

Ministry never stopped calling, though, and the last 22 years of Lottie’s service were spent in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She specialized in women’s and children’s medicine. In fact, she’s known in the medical field for her discovery of a cure for “Smoky City” pneumonia, caused by smog in large cities.

Her legacy is one of faith, loyalty, humility, and mission. Dr. Charlotte Isbell Blake gave her life in service to God, and He used her to change the lives of people in communities both near and far.

If you’d like to read more stories of Adventist history like this, visit encyclopedia.adventist.org.

[FM1]The article in the encyclopedia refers to it as just “Oakwood”

Replace “Oakwood University” with “the school”?

Kellogg image