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Frances Rains, Nurse, and Businesswoman born

Frances Rains

*Frances Rains was born on this date in 1911. She was a Black nurse, community worker, educator, and businesswoman.

As a young girl, Frances Mary McHie from Minneapolis, Minnesota, wanted to become a social worker mainly because of her exposure to a local activist and businesswoman, W. Gertrude Brown. After high school, she attempted to enroll at the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing. After being turned down because she was Black, Minnesota senator Sylvanus A. "S.A." Stockwell and Mrs. Brown brought the issues and young Frances before the Minnesota State Legislature.

It was here in 1929 that she was immediately admitted to the school and soon became the first Black woman to graduate from the school in 1932.   She received her Bachelor of Science from the University's School of Education that same year. An Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority member, McHie became the first Black employed by the Minneapolis General Hospital as a supervisor of the outpatient clinic after graduation. She was the first Black to work with the visiting Nurses Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, and one of 12 nurses who broke the color barrier at Herman Kiefer Hospital in Detroit, MI.   An advocate of family consumer services, McHie served as Associate Professor and assistant to the Director of the School of Nursing at Tuskegee Institute and Nashville's Meharry Medical College and as Director of Nursing Services for their Hubbard Hospital.

The couple eventually had two children after marrying Dr. Horace Rains in 1951. In 1953, she was one of the first Blacks to teach at the School of Nursing at the University of Southern California General Hospital in Los Angeles. After assisting her husband’s private medical practice in Long Beach for several years, Rains became a real estate broker in 1972, soon owning a Century 21 franchise. Active in the Southern California community, she organized the Long Beach National Council of Negro Women and served as an officer for the Long Beach NAACP.

Rains was a former board member of the Long Beach Children’s Psychiatric Clinic, American Nurses Association, Harbor Area Chapter of Links, and National Council of Negro Women. She was a member of Grant AME church for nearly 50 years and is a former Sunday school teacher. In her later years, she was chairman of the Board of Directors of the Long Beach Community Improvement League. Frances Rains died on May 21, 2006, after a stroke earlier that spring. Her nephew is Benjamin Mchie, founder of African American Registry®.

In 2009, the University of Minnesota School of Nursing celebrated its Centennial by placing her photograph and biography in the University Weaver-Densford Hall, the school's nursing building. In 2019, her nephew Benjamin Mchie established the Frances McHie Nursing Scholarship at the University of Minnesota.

To Become a Nurse