Twenty years ago this month Toledo lost one of its most distinguished citizens with the death of Ella P. Stewart at age 94.

One of the first members of the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame, she was much more than the sum of her impressive accomplishments.

Most area residents will know her as the namesake of the Ella P. Stewart Academy for Girls on Avondale Avenue, which was dedicated in 1961 as Ella P. Stewart Elementary School.

Even before moving to Toledo with her husband, William, in 1921, Mrs. Stewart was breaking barriers. Born on a farm near Berrysville, Va., in 1893, she was the first black woman to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy and operated her own drugstore in that state for two years before marrying her husband, also a pharmacist.

Upon moving to Toledo, the pair opened a pharmacy at City Park and Indiana avenues, which they ran for 30 years.

Retirement in 1945 brought another chapter in Mrs. Stewart’s life. Subsequent years would see her become president of the 50,000-member National Association of Colored Women, while also serving on committees for a host of local entities, from the YMCA and the Toledo Art Museum to the Committee on Relations with Toledo, Spain.

In 1954-55 she served as a goodwill ambassador for the U.S. State Department, traveling by Jeep and train through Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia discussing American democracy.

Despite these accomplishments, she wasn’t immune to racism back home. In 1957, she was disinvited from a celebration commemorating the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown when organizers in her native Virginia learned she was black. Toledoans responded by holding a banquet in her honor that same night.

As for the school named after her, Mrs. Stewart was both delighted and cautious.

“I preferred not to have anything named after me,” she said at the time, “because you never know when you’re going to run a stop light or something. But they insisted.”

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First Published November 27, 2017, 5:00 a.m.