Georgia Ann Nugent /  Nugent Sisters

The Nugent Sisters:  Georgia (circa 1872), Alice (1875), Ida (1880) and Mollie (1867)

 

Georgia A. Nugent, Alice Emma Nugent,

Mollie Nugent Williams, and Ida B. Nugent Paey

were daughters of George and Anna Foster Nugent,

who, according to census reports, were both illiterate.

George was a janitor most of his life, Anna a laundress.

This stands in stark contrast to the record of three

of their daughters, Georgia, Alice and Ida, who became

school teachers. All four Nugent children became leaders

in their communities. Alice, Georgia, and Mollie lived

together, with their parents, until their deaths.

 

The Nugents are typical of many Louisville

African American suffragists. Their parents were born

during slavery but worked hard to provide a better life for

their children. The three younger children were educated

in the Louisville colored schools and graduated from

Central High School, became teachers upon graduation,

and continued to accrue educational credentials.

Georgia and Alice attained degrees from both

State University [later Simmons] and

Kentucky Industrial College [later Kentucky State

University]. The family pooled its resources, all members

but Mollie, the eldest, working outside the

home, but even Mollie, who remained at home and

apparently cared for the home, was employed as a                         Unable to locate images of Mollie and Ida Nugent, 

dressmaker.  By 1920 the Nugents had moved next door               they are lovingly represented as framed silhouettes

to the Charles and Mary Parrish family and

remained neighbors for more than twenty years. By 1930, the Nugents owned their home, worth $7,000, their residence becoming a social hub for entertaining local African Americans as well as out-of-state dignitaries.

 

 

                                                        Georgia Anne Nugent (circa 1872-1940)

                                                        Teacher, Activist, Community Leader

 

                                                        Census reports and her death certificate give varying dates for Georgia 

                                                        Nugent’s birth. However, she graduated Louisville Central High School in1889, 

                                                        making 1872 the more likely date. She began teaching in the Louisville colored 

                                                        schools upon graduation. During the 1920s, she took extension courses through 

                                                        a variety of schools: Indiana State Normal School, Hampton Institute, and 

                                                        Chicago Normal. In 1930, she completed a B. A. at Simmons University and an 

                                                        additional B.A. at Kentucky State College in 1936. A teacher for more than forty-

                                                        eight years, she was employed at a number of Louisville schools, including

                                                        Lincoln Colored School and Jackson Street Colored Junior High. She taught                                                                Sunday School for more than fifty years. 

 

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Georgia Nugent helped to organize the Woman’s Improvement Club in 1896 and served as both president and secretary. The Club, the earliest Louisville club to become affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women, worked on behalf of many efforts for African Americans: it initiated the first day- nursery in the city and introduced the city’s first volunteer probation work. The Club focused especially on kindergartens; Nugent sought to create a training class for African American women so that they could take charge of kindergartens for African American children. After efforts to create such a training school faltered because of inadequate funding, Nugent reached out to the white Louisville Free Kindergarten Association for help in training kindergarten teachers. The successful effort graduated six women in its first training class. The Club was later renamed the Georgia A. Nugent Improvement Club in her honor. 

 

Georgia Nugent was among those who formed the Kentucky Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in

1904 and served as both Secretary and President. In 1906, the state Association joined the National

Association of Colored Women (NACW).  Nugent, Mamie Steward, and Mary Cook Parrish had already

been prominent in the NACW; Nugent had a long tenure on the Resolutions Committee and served on

other committees as well. At every convention, the NACW had expressed its support for woman

suffrage, and/ or universal suffrage, to include both women and black men, as black men in the South

were often disfranchised. In 1904, at its St. Louis Convention, the organization unanimously amended the Suffrage Department to read, “That the Suffrage Plank/ Suffrage Department be organized under the

supervision of the National Association of Colored Women for the purpose of teaching our women the

principles of civil government, political economy, etc., that they may thus be prepared to become

intelligent voters and responsible citizens of the republic.” At the 1920 Tuskegee Convention, as Chair of

the NACW’s Executive Board, Nugent called for a Committee on Citizenship because “The ballot

without intelligence back of it is a menace instead of a blessing, and I like to believe that women are

accepting their recently granted citizenship with a sense of reverent responsibility.”  When the NACW

met in Louisville in 1911, Georgia Nugent made the general welcome.

Georgia Nugent also served as representative to the National Negro Business League and was a member of the Baptist Women’s Educational Convention. She was active in local efforts involving black high schools and charities devoted to the good of African Americans. 

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                                                             Alice Emma Nugent (1876-1971)

                                                             Teacher, Musician, Church Worker, 

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                                                             Alice Nugent, daughter of George and Anna Foster Nugent, graduated                                                                       Central High School in 1894, the speaker at her commencement in the 

                                                             Masonic Temple Theatre. She attended a variety of post-secondary

                                                             institutions: Louisville Municipal College; Northwestern School of Music;     

                                                             Bouregard College of Music, where she studied piano; Hampton Institute; 

                                                             and Indiana University. She graduated from Simmons University with an A.B.   

                                                             in 1930, and from Kentucky State, also with an A.B. in 1936. Alice Nugent

                                                             taught in the Louisville colored schools, primarily at Paul Dunbar High 

                                                             School. Although she applied to become principal and served more than     

                                                             once as interim principal, she never achieved that goal. She retired in 1946.

                                                             A scholarship in her name, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Louisville Alumni

                                                             Chapter Alice Nugent Scholarship, continues to be awarded.

 

                                                             Alice Nugent was active in many church and civic organizations, choosing to 

                                                             take a less visible role than her sister Georgia. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Georgia Nugent Improvement Club. A long-time member of the Kentucky Association of Colored Women, she wrote the group’s official song. She often took charge of music programs at meetings and conventions and organized programs for children. She took charge of children’s programming when the National Association of Colored Women held its convention in Louisville in 1910. 

 

The Nugent home became a welcoming station for important figures visiting the city. Alice Nugent had

been instrumental in the family’s hosting of out-of-town guests and continued that role after the death of

her sisters.  When Mary McLeod Bethune visited Louisville in 1941 as director of the National Youth

Administration, a New Deal program, she was Alice’s guest at the Nugent Sixth Street home.

Alice Nugent died in 1971 at age 98, the last surviving member of the Nugent family.

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Mollie Nugent Williams (1867-1936)

Seamstress, Church Worker, Activist

 

Mollie Nugent, the oldest daughter of George and Anna Foster Nugent, lived with her husband, Tom

Williams, on 6 th Street with the Nugent family. Mollie worked as a dressmaker/seamstress; Tom worked

as a porter. The couple had no children.

 

Early in life, Mollie was less active publicly than her younger sisters. However, later she became a

member of the Kentucky Association of Colored Women, serving as chair of its Executive Board; she

served on the Board of Managers of the Baptist Women’s Educational Convention and spoke at the

Baptist Women’s Convention on behalf of the Children’s Band. 

 

Mollie Williams was comfortable being a quiet helper.  She often assisted with maintenance at state

University and was president of the Helping Hands Club.

 

Ida Bell Nugent Paey (1880-1958)

Teacher, Civic Leader

 

Ida Bell Nugent lived with her parents and siblings and taught in Louisville until 1908. In 1903, she was

assigned to Main Street Kindergarten when the Louisville School System established public

kindergartens, incorporating existing church sponsored kindergartens. She later taught at Eastern Colored School and South Louisville Colored School. In 1907 she spoke on kindergartens at the state meeting of the Colored Teachers Association. In 1908, she married Andrew Lyman Paey, a physician, and moved to Norfolk, Va.  

Nugent Paey became active in civic affairs in Norfolk. The U. S. Census and City Directories list her in a

variety of roles, including superintendent (1914), probation officer (1913 and 1918) and manager (1947).

She became founder and president of the Day Nursery and Children’s Home, whose purpose was to care

for children while their parents were at work, and included “without charge destitute, neglected,

mistreated or abandoned children” to instruct them “in morals, religious principles, and the rudiments of

education.” She served as a vice president of the Negro Organization Society, whose purpose was “to use every possible means to see that the Negro not only has his chance, but that, having it, he will use it in the wisest possible way for the good of his race and his country.” A Cleveland Gazette article credits this Society with “stirr(ing) the whole city to the realization of the needs of colored people, who though they pay large sums of taxes and are for the most part law abiding, have received relatively scant attention at the hands of the Norfolk city government” and for the bi-racial Norfolk Social Services Bureau. 

 

Ida Nugent Paey visited her sisters often, usually with a reception in her honor at the Nugent home. She

died in Norfolk in 1958. Her remains were returned to Louisville, where she was buried with her birth

family and husband, who had died earlier and had been brought to Louisville for burial.

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Nugent Sisters Information Provided By: Looking for Lilleth Theatre Company

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