By Ashley Benkarski
NASHVILLE, TN — Please join us once again in celebrating the delightful, classy Pauline Marable Hall, turning 104 on Sunday, October 15.
Once The Tribune’s Centenarian of the Year,
Hall has spent the last 80 years in Tennessee, having moved here from Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1937 to attend Meharry Medical College.
Her bio states she graduated in 1942 with a certification in anesthesia and continued her education, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tennessee A&I (now TSU) and an M.S.N. in Psychiatric Health from Vanderbilt University, where she was a doctoral candidate in Higher Education and Administration.
Hall’s life thus far has been marked with admirable accomplishments, and she is a deeply spiritual woman who has spent her life in the service of others—her family, friends, congregations, and community. Hall has served as a nurse, a teacher, and a faithful servant of God, as well as a mother to three children and a wife to her first and second husbands. She’s also a cancer survivor who became a volunteer helping support other survivors.
In 1943, she married the late Dr. W. F. Bernell James, a noted surgeon and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Meharry for more than two decades.
Pauline became the Ob-Gyn Head Nurse, Director of Nursing Service and Assistant Director of Patient Care Education. They had three children together; Bernell Jr., now-deceased; Paula, a noted jazz vocalist and former Metro Nashville Public Schools instructor, and Norma, a retired U.S. Army Colonel.
After the passing of Dr. James, Pauline married her second husband, Reverend James Hall, in 1987. Rev. Hall served as rector of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Hampton, at St. Michael and All Angels, Tallahassee, Fla., and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Nashville and as an instructor at Vanderbilt University. Rev. Hall passed away Feb. 2016.
Hall served first as Assistant and then Interim and eventually Acting Director of Nursing and education programs at Hubbard Hospital and Tennessee State University. She was an instructor in Psychology and Nursing education at TSU in the 1960s and 1970s and has also served as the college’s chairperson of the Accreditation and Curriculum and Evaluation Committees in Nursing Education. Her professional/service memberships include Charter Member of the Tennessee Society of Nursing Services Directors, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., and Chi Eta Phi Sorority, Inc.
A lifetime member of The Order of the Daughters of the King, Hall played a significant role in The Order’s reinstitution in 1998 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Antioch. She also instituted a Chapter of Episcopal Church Women in Hampton, Virginia, which is still active today.
Hall began attending Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church where Paula is a choirmember.
Speaking to the Tribune as she approached her 100th birthday, Hall offered, “Life is out there for you to enjoy. You just have to enjoy it and show gratitude to the people whom you love.”
