(Women’s History Month feature)
As a former educational administrator, I would repeatedly tell teachers/principals that one’s zip code does not determine one’s aptitude, that there is no direct correlation between the two. Well, this article extends that by stating that one’s gender nor race has any bearing on one’s aptitude.
This is evident in the life of Bessie Blount Griffin. Her impact on the lives of the disabled and others has been phenomenal. She was an African American female inventor, physical therapist, nurse and forensic handwriting expert.
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Blount Griffin was born on Nov. 24, 2014, in Hickory, Virginia, now known as the city of Chesapeake. She attended Diggs Chapel which was a one-room schoolhouse built after the Civil War to educate former slaves, their children and Native Americans. The school had No textbooks. Bible verses were used to teach the child to read until they eventually inherited the used textbooks from the local white school.
While attending Diggs Chapel, Blount Griffin was chastised by her teacher for only writing with her left hand. Blount Griffin’s determined spirit was evident during her early years because she took this reprimand as a challenge by becoming ambidextrous. She also taught herself to write with her teeth and feet. Blount Griffin did not realize it at the time, but this skill set would eventually help thousands in the future.
Her education ended after the sixth grade because there were no more formal educational services for Blacks in her community. Her parents later moved north to New Jersey. She continued to be self-taught and obtained a GED. She then attended the nursing program offered by Community Kennedy Memorial Hospital, which was the only Black-owned hospital in the state.
Doing this period of time, colleges and universities did not offer nursing degrees regardless of color, only the nation’s hospitals. After completing her nursing degree she continued her education by enrolling at Panzer College of Physical Education and Hygiene and became a physical therapist.
She began working with amputee soldiers who returned after being wounded in combat. She taught these veterans who had lost their hands how to perform everyday tasks by using their teeth and feet.
Never one to walk away from a challenge, Blount Griffin invented a feeding device for amputees when a physician at the Bronx Hospital told her that the army had been trying to produce a viable feeding device without any success. He further told her that if she really wanted to help disabled veterans, she should figure out a way to help them feed themselves and at the age of 37, she did. Blount Griffin invented an electric self-feeding apparatus for amputees. She created this groundbreaking device in her kitchen using her own $3,000. A part of the device was patented in 1948. During this same time period, she invented a disposable kidney shaped emesis basin.
The U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) declined both of her inventions along with the U. S. military. She offered to donate them both. She boarded a flight from New York to France. In 1952, she licensed her electric self-feeding apparatus for amputees and freely gave it to the French government. She sold the rights to her kidney shape disposable emesis basin invention to a company in Belgium.
In later years, Blount Griffin began a second career in law enforcement working in forensic science research. Based on her former career as a patient therapist, she used her knowledge to discover a correlation between physical health and writing characteristics. Her observations showed how a person’s handwriting reflected their state of health. She was invited to Scotland Yard in 1977 to join them for advanced studies in graphology. At age 63, she became the first Black woman accepted into the program.
Asked during an interview if she regretted not making much money off of her inventions, she replied “No, it was never about the money or notoriety — it was making a point about the abilities and contributions of Black women. Forget me. It’s what we have contributed to humanity — that as a Black female we can do more than nurse their babies and clean their toilets.”
Blount Griffin and her husband had one son. She died on Dec. 30, 2009, in Newfield, New Jersey at the age of 99. She was honored in 1912 by The American Academy of Physical Therapy, an African American focused physical therapy organization and honored as one of the Virginia Women in History in 2005. In 2019, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her, as part of their Overlooked No More. Blount Griffin definitely Kept an Eye on Safety by inventing 20 assistive devices for the disabled.
