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The Gainsboro History Project

Eiko “Kim” Claytor

For over twenty-five years, Eiko “Kim” Claytor (1921-2011) was co-founder and nursing instructor at the Burrell Memorial Hospital–Lucy Addison High School of Practical Nursing. She is remembered by the Gainsboro community for her service to the many nurses that were educated at the Burrell Memorial Hospital–Lucy Addison School of Practical Nursing, as well as her kindness, vibrancy, and warmth.

Eiko Kimura “Kim” Claytor was born in Tooele, Utah, on August 30, 1921, to Kosaburo Kimura and Hideyo Sasaki Kimura, who had immigrated from Japan. She graduated from high school in Salt Lake City in 1938 and from Salt Lake General Hospital School of Nursing in 1946.

In 1951 she entered the Air Force Nursing Corps, serving in Anchorage, Alaska. It was here that she met Dr. Walter S. Claytor, and the two became engaged. After she was discharged in 1953, she stayed in Washington, DC, with Dr. Claytor’s sister Roberta and worked as a nurse at Garfield Hospital. She married Dr. Claytor in Gainsboro on May 12, 1954, and the couple had three children: Kaye Linda, David, and Mark.

Nursing Career

When the Burrell Memorial Hospital–Lucy Addison High School of Practical Nursing opened in 1958, Kim Claytor became the school’s first clinical instructor, a role she held until her retirement in 1986. Her efforts helped the school achieve a 99% passing rate on the State Board’s practical nursing licensing examination, as she personally tutored struggling students. When her students graduated, Kim Claytor was known to offer guidance in securing jobs and scholarships for future education.

A black and white photo of Kim Claytor in a nurses uniform
Eiko Kimura “Kim” Claytor. Courtesy of Roanoke Public Libraries.

Personal Life and Community Involvement

Kim Claytor was known for her excellence in many crafts, including sewing, knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, embroidery, ceramics, and designing T-shirts and button brooches. She was a founding member of a Roanoke chapter of From the Heart Stitchers, a group dedicated to making hand knitted, crocheted, and sewn products for those in need. The original club fondly named Kim’s group the Roanoke Rapid Stitchers for their speed in completing projects, including crocheted blankets and over 4,000 skull caps for cancer patients.

Kim was a lifelong member of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, as well as a lifetime member of the Roanoke chapter of the NAACP and the SCLC. The former organization honored her with the Citizen of the Year for Medicine award in 2005, and the SCLC granted her the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award in 2004. The American Red Cross awarded her a pin for her many years of volunteer service.

See Also

  1. School of Practical Nursing
  2. Dr. Walter S. Claytor
  3. Nurses

Sources

Claytor, Eiko Kimura. (2011, Nov. 20). The Roanoke Times.

Claytor, K. L. (n.d.). [Letter]. Gainsboro Branch Library Vertical Files, Roanoke, VA, United States.

Eiko Kimura Claytor, RN. (2012). Notable Women West of the Blue Ridge, Twentieth Century. A Project of the Colonel William Preston Chapter, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Pollitt, P. A. (2016). African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History, 1900–1965. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Woodbury, M. C., and Marsh, R. C. (1994). Virginia kaleidoscope: The Claytor family of Roanoke, and some of its kinships, from first families of Virginia and their former slaves. Published by Margaret C. Woodbury and Ruth C. Marsh.