The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February and March 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear former CEO of the Dr. Piper Center Melissa Bonner and Shavon Chester, a member of the Center’s Board of Directors talk about the remarkable life, work and legacy of Dr. Ella Mae Piper, and the ongoing social services work of the Center, which is located in Fort Myers on the very same property where Dr. Piper lived.
Transcript:
SHAVON CHESTER: I am so happy to be doing this with you, a woman who inspires me every day. You know, who else inspires me, Melissa?
MELISSA BONNER: Who?
CHSTER: Dr Piper.
BONNER: I knew you were going to say that.
CHESTER: What a privilege and an honor we have and supporting her legacy and keeping her memory alive for people.
BONNER: I agree 100 percent. When you think about how long ago she lived in Fort Myers and that we're still here today talking about her, yeah, that's definitely an amazing thing.
CHESTER: We are talking about an African American woman who owned several businesses at a time where people weren't really allowing women, let alone black women, to own property or businesses. Phenomenal.
BONNER: A real trailblazer.
CHESTER: For sure. Dr. Ella Mae Piper was a prominent businesswoman and a philanthropist, and we get to continue her work at the Dr Piper center. Something that is so special to me that I found out through our local historian Jarrett Eady, was that my own Uncle Bobby Chester was one of the first members of the board of directors in June of 1976 and throughout my work with the Dr. Piper center, we found so many influential members of the Southwest Florida community have, at one time or another, served on the board like our own mayor. When Dr. Piper moved to Fort Myers in 1916 she had a beauty shop on Jackson Street, which is a prominent street here in the city of Fort Myers. Not only did she have her beauty shop, she had the Big Four Bottling Company on Mango and Evans Street.
BONNER: When Dr. Piper, before she opened her Bottling Company, she had gotten married, and so back in that time, if you were a business owner and you were a woman, it had to be under your husband's name. So, she actually had to petition to have the company in her name. So, to think that a woman had that much foresight at that day and age, but yeah, I mean, so her petition was granted and she was actually the owner of the bottling company.
CHESTER: Clearly, what Dr. Piper felt right doing was to make sure that her name and her legacy was her own and not attached to a man.
BONNER: Yeah.
CHESTER: Go women! She owns the beauty shop. She owns a bottling company. She's a member of her church. She's helping to build schools. She also helped to fund Jones Walker Hospital, which was the first Black hospital in the Dunbar community.
BONNER: The school that she helped fund, the Dunbar Community Center, that was the first high school that took non-white students as well. So, she really gave back a lot to her community and the people who lived in her community.
CHESTER: I think that one of the things as a woman, as a Black woman, still living in Fort Myers myself, it's so important to me to be a part of the Piper Center and to support the programs that we have that serve the Southwest Florida community. I love what we do on Christmas Day. So, Dr. Piper's mom, Sarah Williams…
BONNER: In 1915 she had an event for the kids who lived in the local community, and they provided gifts and food to children on Christmas morning. And she continued that until she passed away, at which time, Dr. Piper took over the helm of leading the event, and that continued through Dr. Piper's lifetime. And then the community stepped up and carried on that event in the name of Dr. Piper. And then when the Dr. Piper center started in the 70s, we took over that tradition.
CHESTER: So how many years uninterrupted have you been doing the Christmas party?
BONNER: This past Christmas (2023), we had our 108th annual Christmas celebration. No interruptions.
CHESTER: Not even during COVID?
BONNER: Not even during COVID.
CHESTER: That's crazy.
BONNER: So, you know, and it's grown. It started with 15 little girls, and now it's grown to over 400 children who come on Christmas morning. Still, the community helps. All of the gifts are donated. The food is donated. We have over 100 volunteers on Christmas morning, and it's like a family event.
CHESTER: It has now become my family's tradition to show up on Christmas morning. The first Christmas I volunteered, it was just me by myself, and I got all this pushback from my family, like, “why aren't you with us on Christmas morning?” And now you fast forward, my entire family, That is how we start Christmas Day. And the look on these kids’ faces when they didn't think they were going to have a Christmas, the look on their face when they get their bike and they're wheeling around Dr. Piper's property, you have to imagine Sarah Williams, Dr. Piper's mom and Dr. Piper looking down 108 years later.
BONNER: Yeah.
CHESTER: At these kids rolling around on these brand new bicycles on the property where they did the very same thing 108 years ago.
BONNER: Yep. And our volunteers get so much out of it, too. It's not just the clients. They feel like they're helping and they have a purpose. So, it's serving our clients and our volunteers.
CHESTER: It's been scientifically proven that volunteering and giving back to the community affects your health in the most positive ways.
BONNER: You know, in her legacy, it really has impacted people. We have a volunteer in the Foster Grandparent Program who came to the Christmas event when she was a kid and thinks about how much that event helped her family. And then she grew up across the street from Jones Walker Hospital. So now here she is, I guess, what is she? I think, 80 years later, and she's volunteering through a program in the name of the legacy of Dr. Piper. So, it just kind of like comes full circle her contributions.
CHESTER: I love that.
JOHN DAVIS, HOST: That was Melissa Bonner and Shavon Chester talking about the life of Dr. Ella Mae Piper and her ongoing legacy through the Dr. Piper Center. Chester is a member of the Center's board of directors. Bonner was CEO of the Center at the time of their recording. She's now the Chief Operations Officer of the Children's Advocacy Center of Southwest Florida. Their conversation was recorded in Fort Myers through the StoryCorps Mobile Tour. This is WGCU News.
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