A Rebel Spirit with A Heart
Ella Piper lived far beyond the bounds of other blacks and women of her day.
Decades before civil rights and women’s rights became part of America’s Vernacular, Piper was a successful businesswoman and landowner. She opened Fort Myers first Beauty Salon in the 1920s catering to the ladies of local white society, and developed other business interests that made her a wealthy woman.
“She had what I like to call a Rebel Spirit,” said Vivian Hill, A Franklin Park Elementary School Teacher who has researched Piper. “She was the type that would show many people, “if I can do it, you can do it.”
But Piper is not remembered for her money or her ability to cross the color line. Nearly 35 years after her death, “Dr. Ella” is remembered for her giving spirit.
“She helped in that quiet kind of way, meeting the simple needs of people,” said Ray Jackson Executive Director at the Dr. Ella Piper Center, an Elderly Services Agency established on the property that Dr. Piper left to the City of Fort Myers when she died in 1954 at the age of 70. For instance, a family fallen on hard times might wake up to find groceries on the doorstep or a couple celebrating many years of Marriage would have their anniversary party financed by Piper.
Mary Ware remembers that when her oldest son, Walter was ready to go off to College, Piper gave him so much clothing that he was able to share with other students. “She was just down to earth,” said Ware, 79. “She was a beautiful lady in looks and her dealing with you. She loved her people.”
Many details of Piper’s life are sketchy. She’s scarcely mentioned in Fort Myers History Books. And although her old photo album now resides in the Fort Myers Historical Museum, most of the pictures aren’t marked, offering few clues about her life. What is known is that she was born March 8, 1884, in Brunswick, GA., The daughter of Ned Bailer and Sarah Williams. Little is known about Bailer except his name; much more is known about Piper’s mother who worked in her later years as a domestic for a white Fort Myers family. Her mother helped pay for Piper’s education at Spellman College in Atlanta and later at Professor Rohrer’s World famous Institute of Beauty Culture in New York City. Piper studied as a Beautician and a Chiropodist—meaning she cared for feet, hence her title as a Doctor.
Sometime after her graduation in 1915, Piper opened a Beauty Shop in New York City, Hill said. She also began spending the summers in her mother’s Fort Myers home, which stood where the Dairy Queen on South Cleveland Avenue now stands. During those summers, Piper rented a beauty shop on Jackson Street, Hill said.
Dr. Piper’s customers weren’t the black women of Fort Myers; her services were beyond their pocketbooks. Instead, many of her clients were wealthy white women. Including the wives of Inventors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
Mary Ware remembers working in Piper’s shop as a young girl, sweeping up on Saturdays. “She was always ready to help the less fortunate,” Ware said, “But she made her money with the white people.” She poured much of her money back into the community at large by helping to finance such buildings as the Black Hospital—Jones Walker Hospital—and Williams Academy, a local black public school, Hill said. She carried on a tradition started by her mother in 1915, one that still continues today – The Annual Christmas Party. Hundreds of children annually gathered at Dr. Piper’s home on Evans Avenue to collect gifts, sing carols and hear the story of Christ’s Birth.
Dr. Piper and her husband, Frank S. Piper, bought the property on Evans Avenue in 1925. Soon after, they built her permanent beauty shop and their home on the land.
Around this time, Piper filed for and received the state permission to function as a free dealer. That meant she could buy and sell property and conduct business without her husband’s approval. It was a right not many women—white or black—exercised at the time.
In addition to her salon, Piper also owned the Big Four Bottling Company in Fort Myers, which bottled soda and sold it for 4 cents a serving, Hill said. She also was one of the first women to own an automobile in Fort Myers and had a chauffeur, Hill said.
“She was a kind of pioneer both socially and financially,” said Patricia Bartlet, Executive Director of the Fort Myers Historical Museum.
Dr. Piper died of a stroke on June 13, 1954.
In her will, she left her property to the city of Fort Myers, to be used for children, the poor and the elderly. The city chooses to use it for the elderly, building The Dr. Ella Piper Center there in 1976.
“From what I know of her spirit, her concern for people in general,” Jackson said, “I think she would have appreciated the good we’ve done with the property.”
This is a copy of an article in the news press by Suzanne D. Jeffries
Date Not On Article. Should be 1988 or 1989. Died 1954. Article is “nearly 35 years after her death.”
Click here to read the Biography of Dr. Ella Piper.
Click here to read the History of Dr. Ella Piper.