One of the legendary Staten Island’s Black Angels nurses, Curlene Gaynelle Jennings Bennett, died in her home on Sept. 29 at the age of 89. This past weekend, her family and friends gathered to honor her.
“I would love to say that our mama was and still is an inspiration to not just her family but to friends, former colleagues and her beloved spiritual communities. Her celebration of life reflected her legacy of love,” said her daughter, Leah Bennett. Prior to her passing, she had a stroke and was in poor health, Leah said.
A Tennessee native, Bennett moved to Staten Island as an elementary school student and she graduated from St. Peter’s High School. In 1957, she graduated from Manhattan’s Bellevue School of Nursing, and was a nurse at Sea View Hospital helping care for tuberculosis patients from 1957 to 1958 before leaving to work as a public health nurse with a specialty in neonatal care.
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In her 20s, Bennett moved to Liberia in West Africa, where she was married. While her husband worked as a business manager for the country’s president, William V.S. Tubman, Bennett used her nursing skills to set up well-baby clinics and teach nutrition.
She would go on to work at what was then known as Beekman Downtown Hospital in Manhattan as a head nurse. She also assisted in establishing a head injury unit at Susan Smith-McKinney Rehab Center in Brooklyn as assistant director, and ended her almost 50-year nursing career at Sea View as assistant director of nursing in 2002, her family said. Bennett raised her five children in Mariners Harbor on Staten Island.
Her stories were shared with Maria Smilios, author of “The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis,” and Bennett was featured in the Staten Island Museum’s 2023 tribute exhibit, “Taking Care: The Black Angels of Sea View Hospital.”
