Lisa Herndon writes: “Growing up, Virginia Allen admired her maternal aunt Edna Sutton Ballard and loved to see her nurse’s uniform. Both women went on to make history as part of a group of 300 nurses who later became known as ‘Black Angels.’” These mostly Black nurses provided care for tuberculosis patients at Staten Island’s Seaview Hospital after white nurses left in 1929 due to the danger. Allen has volunteered at New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture since 2010, and recalls her time at Seaview in a new blog post.