Clotilda Adessa Coward
First African Canadian to graduate from the Nova Scotia Hospital school of Nursing.
Became a community activist, asking for improvements to the housing and living conditions within her home community. She called for a cleanup of waste from the steel plants that were causing damage to the health of the community. She became one of the first Black Canadians involved in the environmental movement and maintained the connection to the environmental movement to address the link between environmental damage and waste, and the detriment to the health of her community.
1932
2021
Whitney Pier, Nova Scotia, Canada
African Canadian.
1954 – First Black graduate of the Nova Scotia Hospital School of Nursing
1980s – Began attending the meetings about the effects of the steel plant on the environment and on people’s health. After 10 years of campaigning, the government finally put money towards the cleanup of the tar ponds.
She grew up in the 1930s and 1940s in the neighbourhood of Whitney Pier, along with residents who were Barbadian, Jewish, Italian and Hungarian. She failed seventh grade because she was too interested in the boys of her class, and she wanted to drop out of school in the eleventh grade to help her mother make ends meet when her parents separated. She persevered through school and got her diploma, and decided she wanted to be a nurse.
1954 – Became the first Black graduate of the Nova Scotia Hospital School of Nursing.
1954-1957- Became the Admission Unit head nurse for three years.
1957 – moved to Grenada where she was the Director of Nursing for nine years at the island’s psychiatric hospital. While in Grenada, she earned a Postgraduate Midwifery Diploma.
1967 – returned to Nova Scotia with her first husband and became a staff nurse at the Sydney City Hospital.
1988 – Became the first Black person to be elected president of the Registered Nurses Association of Nova Scotia (now called the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia) in the organisation’s 100year history.
She spent 24 years at Cape Breton’s psychiatric hospital, serving as nursing supervisor for five years and the first Director of Staff Development for 19 years before being appointed Director of Educational Services at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital. She held that position for two years.
1991 – Received the Harry Jerome Award
1994 – Retired as Director of Education Services at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney.
2003 – Received Order of Canada
2010 – Received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Cape Breton University. She had been lobbying for the development of this degree for thirty years. The first group of students were admitted in 2007, and received their Doctor of Laws in 2010, along with Clotilda.
2018 – Awarded the Order of Nova Scotia
After a local musician heard Patti sing he asked if she would cover the lead vocalist of his band in an upcoming show for 10 shillings. She agreed and this was one of her first many professional gigs. Patti continued to play several gigs in clubs and theatres around the UK between 1960s to 1980s. She also became a seasoned international cabaret artiste, supporting big stars like Bruce Forsyth.
Patti’s role as an understudy to Elaine Delmar in the hit West End Show, Bubbling Brown Sugar was one her many career highlights, particularly when Delmar went to America for three months and Patti fronted the stage for this period.
During the mid1980s, Patti moved to Spain and became a respected music producer and radio presenter with her shows Just for You and Costa Nights. One notable interviewee Patti encountered was Stan Thomas who started the Peter’s Pies empire. Patti helped Stan sell his pies in Spain which was impactful for their international sales.
In the 1980s, Patti recorded her own album Soulful Resonance.
Patti did however return to Cardiff, performing and creating her popular shows Jazz Ladies of the Twentieth Century, and A Trip Down Memory Lane which featured the music of great American composers. Patti also created and performed as the Butetown Bay Divas alongside the Webbe sisters, Humie and Jacky. The three are often regarded as the ‘Three divas of Tiger Bay’.
She continued to work with Humie and Jackie Webb and they would do their diva shows. They put in much hard work and in the end established Butetown Bay Jazz Heritage Festival in 2009. The Festival takes over the Wales Millennium Centre and welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds to enjoy two days of music from national and international jazz performances and free workshops. This has reintroduced the life that the buzzing docklands tradition had.
Patti was not only focused on music but used her talent to continually bring attention to Wales’ BME heritage and history. Her continual work with Butetown History and Arts Centre, for example; she used music and storytelling to work with school groups and provided songwriting workshops for young people. Furthermore, she was an enthusiastic researcher into Black history and culture. She wrote Fractured Horizon in 2003 with Matthew Manning which was a bilingual book, confronting the past and present of Cardiff docklands.
Patti also used her radio show on Cardiff Radio as an opportunity to consistently raise broader public awareness of the positive part which the BME community has played in Welsh society’s development.
Patti also received an invitation to study at Ruskin College in Oxford from BBC Woman’s Hour. Here she completed two research projects, From a Seaside Town to Capital City about Cardiff, and Colouring History which focused on putting famous women of colour back into history.
Patti advocated for Black History to be included on the curriculum and in 2017 was honoured as a founding member of the Black History Month movement in Wales. Patti also ran a successful 26-year campaign for a memorial to Black and ethnic minority soldiers. Her campaign was finally rewarded in 2019 when a plaque to commemorate their sacrifices was unveiled at the Welsh National War Memorial in Cardiff by the Welsh Government and senior officials from the British Armed forces. In 2019 she was also honoured with an EMWWAA (Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Association) Lifetime Achievement Award.
In her later years, Patti worked and raised money for members of the community who had dementia and also providing support for sickle cell disease. Patti never stopped her community work. At the time of her death she was working on her memoirs, telling the story of Cardiff docklands.
One of four children
First husband: Benson T. Douglas (married in 1955). Together they had five children: Carl, Valerie, Kendrick, Sharon, and Leslie
She had 13 grandchildren, 7 great grandchildren
Second husband: Dan Yakimchuck (married in 1984), of which she acquired two stepchildren. They were married for 27 years until he died in 2011
She died in 2021 at the age of 89
Dr. Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk, RN, ONS, CM | Obituary Notice | Sydney Memorial Chapel
Whitney Pier woman recognized for lifetime of community service | SaltWire
One of Nova Scotia’s first Black nurses recalls struggles and triumphs | CBC News
Order of Nova Scotia is best birthday gift — Ron Fanfair
Nursing pioneer Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk is dead — Ron Fanfair
Rao, A., 2020. One Earth: people of color protecting our planet. Canada: Orca Book Publishers. pp63-65.
