News Release

Norma Connell Berryhill, ‘first lady’ of
UNC School of Medicine, dies at 103

CHAPEL HILL -- Norma Connell Berryhill, a longtime leader within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine community whose name came to symbolize Southern hospitality and selfless public service, died today (July 8) at Carolina Meadows in Chapel Hill. She was 103.

Mrs. Berryhill was often called the "first lady" or "co-founder" of the modern-day School of Medicine and its affiliated UNC Hospitals. Her husband, the late Dr. Walter Reece Berryhill, presided over the school and hospital during their most significant expansions in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His vision of the university’s responsibilities to the state of North Carolina served as the blueprint for today’s School of Medicine, UNC Hospitals and the N.C. Area Health Education Centers program.

Of his wife’s contributions to the school’s effort, Dr. Berryhill once said, "she did more than anybody."

Norma Connell was the third of 10 children and the eldest daughter born to William Allen and May Beardsley Connell on a large cotton farm in Warren County.

After graduating from Warrenton High School, Miss Connell enrolled in Peace College in Raleigh to study education.

Upon receiving her associate’s degree from Peace, Mrs. Berryhill taught sixth grade in Norlina. The following summer, she enrolled at UNC on a full scholarship as the protégée of Dr. Howard Washington Odum, a nationally renowned researcher whose influential studies addressed regional and racial sociology. While in school, Miss Connell tutored faculty members’ children to earn extra money and worked at the Campus Y organizing social activities for women – fashion shows, talent shows, skits and dances. She was also active in campus affairs and a member of Pi Beta Phi Sorority.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Carolina in 1925, she became director of the Girls’ Club in Leaksville-Spray, now Eden.

Elmer Garinger, the principal of Charlotte’s Central High School and a friend, told Miss Connell that if she would attend Columbia University’s counseling and guidance program, he would hire her as the high school’s dean of girls. So she moved to New York, took a job in a settlement house working with women immigrants and began her graduate studies at Columbia.

A year later, she returned to Charlotte to become dean of girls at Central High School and served in that position for three years until her marriage to Dr. Berryhill in August 1930. She then accompanied him to Cleveland where he was first, chief resident in medicine, and later, attending physician at Lakeside Hospital and an instructor at Case Western Reserve University. While there, she worked with the newly formed Girls’ Bureau, counseling delinquent girls.

The Berryhills returned to Chapel Hill in 1933, when Dr. Berryhill accepted a position as chief physician at UNC’s student infirmary. A short time later, he became an associate professor of medicine and rose quickly through the ranks of the medical school, eventually becoming dean in 1941 when he was just 41 years old – the youngest man ever appointed to the position.

Persuading physicians to move to Chapel Hill in the 1940s and 1950s was a challenge for the Berryhills. There was only one hotel in town and few restaurants, so the responsibility for making potential and new medical faculty families feel welcome fell upon Mrs. Berryhill.

It was a task she handled with grace and dignity. She organized the Medical Student Wives Association and House Officers Wives Club to help build a sense of community among medical students, interns, residents and their spouses. She hosted dinners and teas for faculty members and their wives, readily provided meals – and often lodging – to visiting legislators or dignitaries, and always offered a casserole or dessert when a new medical-school family moved to Chapel Hill.

Perhaps most importantly, Mrs. Berryhill served as mentor, counselor and confidante to hundreds of medical students’ wives. During the 1940s and 1950s, the vast majority of medical students were men, and many of them attended school on the GI Bill following their discharge from the military. They came to Chapel Hill with wives and babies and barely enough money to scrape by. While their husbands spent long hours away from home working and studying in the library, laboratory or hospital, their wives frequently turned to Mrs. Berryhill for empathy, encouragement and advice.

It was a kindness not soon forgotten. Fifty years later, now grandmothers and great-grandmothers themselves, the same women would visit Mrs. Berryhill to express their appreciation for her support.

Mrs. Berrryhill’s contributions to the School of Medicine and UNC Hospitals were so instrumental to their growth in size and reputation that a distinguished lecture series was named in her honor. The Norma Berryhill Distinguished Lectureship takes place each fall and features an accomplished School of Medicine faculty member.

A past president of the Peace College Alumnae Association, Mrs. Berryhill was awarded the college’s Distinguished Service Award. She received a Distinguished Service Award from the UNC School of Medicine in 1975.

Mrs. Berryhill enjoyed tending to her flowers and was renowned for the bougainvillea she coaxed into blooming almost year-round. A doting grandmother, Mrs. Berryhill thoroughly enjoyed her five grandchildren, and they visited Chapel Hill at every opportunity. Her love of history and geography and her insatiable curiosity fueled her love of travel and adventure and she traversed a great deal of the world.

A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. on Monday (July 11) at University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill. The family will receive friends immediately following the service in the church fellowship hall. The Cremation Society of North Carolina is handling the arrangements.

Mrs. Berryhill was preceded in death by her husband, Dr. Walter Reece Berryhill; a daughter, Jane Berryhill Neblett; grandson Reece Berryhill Williams; her parents; and eight of her siblings.

Surviving are a sister, Hattie Connell Bowers of Warrenton; a daughter, Catherine Berryhill Williams of Chapel Hill; four grandchildren, Clawson L. Williams III (Debora) of Mesa, Ariz.; Jane Williams Meyer (David) of Raleigh, John Small Neblett Jr. (Janet) of Clemmons and Catherine Neblett Tester (Gary) of Waxhaw; and five great-granddaughters, Dacey Layne and Susanna Williams of Mesa, Ariz., and Catherine and Elizabeth Neblett of Clemmons and Delaney Tester of Waxhaw; and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family would like to express its gratitude toward the staff of Carolina Meadows, who cared for Mrs. Berryhill so well.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Norma Berryhill Lecture, c/o The Medical Foundation of North Carolina, Inc., 880 Martin Luther King Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514-2600 or Peace College, Office of the President, 15 E. Peace St., Raleigh, NC 27604, or the charity of one’s choice.

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/other/berryhill_norma.jpg

Contact: UNC Health Care Public Affairs and Marketing, (919) 966-3366