Gerry Green

Gerry Green
Gerry Green, photo by Deborah W-B

Gerry Green cofounded Breakthrough Counseling Center, a feminist counseling service in Gainesville, Florida, in 1975 or 1976. She also cofounded with Carol Aubin the feminist bookstore, Amelia’s Bookstore, in approximately 1977.  Breakthrough Counseling Center shared space with Women Unlimited entities such as the radical newsletter, WomanNews, and with Gainesville’s first feminist bookstore, WomanStore. Amelia’s Bookstore was a successor to that first bookstore, located in the old Tench Building, where the first offices of Women Unlimited were located.

Gerry Green was born in California in 1932. As a child, she moved to Fort Worth, Texas, with her family. She came out in 1950 while attending Texas State College for Women. She left college to join the military service for two years, where she got interested in nursing.

Gerry Green left the military to attend nursing school (1958 to 1960) at John Peter Smith Hospital School of Nursing in Fort Worth. She got her Master of Science degree in nursing in Austin, Texas in 1964. She taught a year at Baylor University’s College of Nursing in Dallas, Texas, before moving in 1969 to Okeechobee, Florida, with her partner. She taught students in the program for the associate degree in nursing (ADN) in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Gerry Green met Carol Bradshaw, the director of Santa Fe Nursing School in Gainesville, Florida, at a conference. In 1972, Bradshaw asked Green to come to Gainesville to teach with the Santa Fe Nursing Program. Gerry Green did, and she advanced in her career there to become the head of Nursing and Health-Related Programs at the Santa Fe Nursing School in 1982.

See Also:

“Women Unlimited, Gainesville, Florida,” Sinister Wisdom 109 (Summer 2018): 21-23.