This ‘eternal optimist’ leads COVID-19 fight in Columbus. Who is Dr. Beverley Townsend?
Dr. Beverley Townsend has lived a life of firsts.
Columbus’ top public health official grew up in a three-room, shotgun house in rural northern Mississippi and was the first in her family to go to college. She was the first Black woman to complete the family medicine residency program at what is now Piedmont Columbus Regional.
Motivated by her own upbringing, Townsend spent portions of her career providing care for residents of rural east Alabama and west-central Georgia as a physician, and later, as director of the public health district overseeing 16 Columbus-area counties. She is the department’s first Black leader, and now temporarily heads two other districts.
She’ll tell you about the accomplishments if you ask, but she is not one to seek the public spotlight — even in the midst of a global pandemic. Those close to Townsend who spoke with the Ledger-Enquirer say she is a humble, supportive and reserved “country girl” who loves her family and inspirational quotes.
That quiet determination led Townsend to break through gender and racial barriers in the field of public health in Georgia. Those same traits now guide her as she leads much of west Georgia through an unparalleled public health crisis.
“Not ever, in my entire career, have I seen anything like this pandemic,” she said.
Why Townsend became a doctor
Townsend grew up in Winona, Mississippi, during the Civil Rights era. Between Memphis and Jackson, the town is right on the edge of the Mississippi Delta. There was no indoor plumbing, and her house was surrounded by fields of cotton among fertile flatland and rolling hills.
Her mother worked in the homes of white families. She cleaned, watched their children and cooked their dinner. As a teenager, Townsend would go with her mother and help with the work. Her mother eventually moved away from domestic labor, landing a job with a state agency as a bookkeeper.
A driving force in Townsend’s life was her grandfather. Born in 1884, he could not read or write, but Townsend said he always wanted more for his family. He died when she was 15 years old, but he indirectly sparked her interest in medicine.
Townsend remembers going to the doctor with him as he waited all day to be seen. As they sat, white patients were treated immediately on the other side of the building. Townsend asked her grandfather why.
“I remember being in the doctor’s office until 10 o’clock at night,” she said. “I had to be quiet because I was asking questions. ...I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make a change. I wanted to be able to provide a service so that we wouldn’t have to wait so long.”
Townsend went on to graduate at the top of her high school class before heading off to Jackson State University, a historically Black college in Mississippi’s capital city. She attended Perdue University for her master’s degree before enrolling at the University of Mississippi for medical school.
“That was not heard of in my (town),” she said. “When I went to church or when I came home from school ... people were proud for me to be a hometown girl (and) be able to do that.”
Townsend ‘truly supported me through that’
Townsend arrived in Columbus in 1984 for the family medicine residency program at what is now Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital. She’d spend the better part of three decades treating patients in the Chattahoochee Valley area.
Luella Rhodes, a longtime friend, moved to Columbus during Townsend’s first years here. Rhodes, who now serves as the executive program director at Columbus’ Wellness Center outreach, was a physician assistant at the time. Her supervising physician, Dr. Thomas Malone, introduced the two women.
They soon learned they had a good bit in common. Both were away from their families and grew up in rural communities, sharing similar life experiences.
“We started off as phone friends,” Rhodes said. “‘How you doing? How’s it going?’ We were two women dedicated to work.”
The relationship grew from there and the two women even took piano lessons together, though Rhodes dropped out. Townsend even stood by Rhodes during her wedding.
Townsend was the friend who always provided advice and support. Shortly before Rhodes had to travel to Orlando for a work conference, an arsonist set fire to her Buena Vista Road office. Townsend talked her through the loss over a phone call — and took it a step further by traveling with her to Florida.
“I was just devastated. I was heartbroken. And she truly supported me through that,” Rhodes said.
The pair last spoke on the phone, like they often do. They were checking in on each other and asking about family members.
“We’re good prayer partners now,” Rhodes said. “And since we got this technology of texting, that cuts down on the talking sometimes. So we’ll text ‘Please pray for me. Please pray for me.’”
‘It was like I was (Townsend’s) mother away from home.’
Townsend also found a “mother away from home” during her first year in the city. M.A. Dowdell, the family medicine residency coordinator for Piedmont Columbus Regional, has worked at the hospital for 50 years, and she’s someone Townsend has turned to for personal advice over the decades.
For those fresh out of med school who are interested in family medicine, Dowdell is often their first point of contact in the Columbus area. She handles tasks such as travel arrangements and schedules during the interview process, and that’s how the duo first met.
Dowdell saw Townsend almost every day as a resident. Some of her peers were trying to make a name for themselves by being flashy or a social butterfly. But that wasn’t Townsend, Dowdell said.
“She was a country girl … trying to make her way on her own,” Dowdell said. “She was bound and determined to do what she could for herself for as long as she could. And if she needed help, she reached out. ...It was like I was her mother away from home.”
Dowdell, known among the medical residents for her sewing prowess, usually just hemmed lab coats or added extra pockets. For Townsend, she did something special. She made a wedding gown, a pink dress made to match Townsend’s sorority colors. She was an Alpha Kappa Alpha.
“It was the first pink wedding dress I’d ever done,” Dowdell said.
Townsend and Dowdell remain in touch, and Dowdell continues to offer her motherly advice. Townsend was one of several former residents who offered support following the death of Dowdell’s adult daughter, LaQuita Dowdell-Rogers. Rogers and Townsend were also close friends.
“She’s just a real neat lady,” Dowdell said. “(Beverley) has had to earn her way. She’s had to press forward and press hard sometimes. And sometimes, push a little harder than she thought she would have to get the recognition.”
Navigating the COVID-19 pandemic
Townsend was named director of Georgia’s West Central Health District in April 2011. The district’s largest county is Muscogee but it also includes some of the poorest areas in the state.
She didn’t realize she was the district’s first Black director until she saw the portraits of all her predecessors.
“I couldn’t have planned it, even if I wanted to,” Townsend said. “It’s not even really about me. It’s about the work that I do. ...Someone struggled for me to be able to be here. I still struggle for someone to come after me. ...I just grabbed a hold of opportunities.”
She’s approached the COVID-19 pandemic the same way, taking any opportunity to stop the spread of the virus.
When adjusted for population, her counties have reported some of the highest case rates in the state. Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest facilities for federal immigration detainees, and Fort Benning, one of the nation’s largest Army posts, falls within her district.
Yet, she, unlike other public health figures at the local, state and national level, has provided few public interviews about the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 7,400 Georgians. But those close to her say her contributions have come in the form of direct action.
“(Townsend) would be the wind beneath your wings before she’d be out front (talking,)” Dowdell said.
Townsend, through the district, has stayed on message: wear a mask and keep your distance from others. She avoids getting caught up in the politics. The science, she says, speaks for itself. She said it’s frustrating when people don’t follow the advice of public health officials or suggest the virus is a hoax.
Her mother’s first cousin died of coronavirus complications in Mississippi.
“She was in a nursing home in Mississippi, and she passed away,” Townsend said. “And COVID was one of her diagnoses.”
Pam Kirkland, who’s worked alongside Townsend as the district’s spokesperson since 2015, said the director was “all-in” to slow the spread of the virus. Staff members weren’t asked to do anything that Townsend herself wouldn’t do.
At Saturday testing events across Columbus and the district, Townsend was there helping her staff.
“She was always there,” Kirkland said. “She was always right there with everybody else, out in the heat and sweating. Doing whatever she needed to do.”
As of July, Townsend also serves as the interim director for two other districts. She runs District 4 which covers 12 counties in the LaGrange area as well as District 3-3 in the Clayton County area. She still heads up the Columbus district, but she spends one day a week in District 4 for meetings and paperwork. There are a lot of conference calls and web meetings, too.
“It’s been tough,” Townsend said. “There are good people in place to really help run things. A good staff has really been the saving grace to be able to do this.”
Townsend has kept her spirits up during the pandemic by exercising. Her favorites are yoga or walking. From her office on Comer Avenue, she’ll take short trips down to Piedmont, stopping in to see Dowdell and others she knows well.
She also finds strength in devotional, biblical readings. Her office is covered in inspirational quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Lewis and Michelle Obama, as well as one of her own personal mantras: “The biggest failure of all is the failure to try.”
“I’m an eternal optimist,” she said.
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 5:55 AM.