Don't Hush Me

Keith Goldberg: WASHINGTONVILLE — Evelyn Decker's family buried her in Washingtonville Cemetery last weekend, where her grandfather dug graves over a century ago and where her family first planted roots during colonial times.

It was a steamy Saturday afternoon when she was laid to rest near a large evergreen tree and her older sister's grave. Decker died just short of her 93rd birthday.

She leaves behind a younger sister, several nieces and nephews, and a place in history.

Evelyn Decker really wanted to be a doctor. But with a father who died young and a mother who, as a hotel cook, had to support four girls, medical school was out of the question. So she left Washingtonville in 1936 for nursing school in Harlem. In 1944, as World War II raged, she joined the U.S. Army.

Decker was black, and segregation split the Army of 1944. She could only work in black hospitals, treating only black soldiers.