Portland nursing pioneer Mariah A. Taylor is the co-founder of the North Portland Nurse Practitioner Community Health Clinic, the first Black woman-owned community-based grassroots nurse practitioner clinic in the country. A MSN, RN, and CPNP, Mariah was an Oprah Winfrey Angel Network Use Your Life Award honoree, noting the clinic was the first of its kind.
One of twenty-five children, Mariah was born in Atlanta, Texas in 1939. She came to Vanport City in 1947, at the age of 8, with her parents and nine of her brothers and sisters. Her family was one of many displaced by the infamous Vanport Flood on Sunday, May 30, 1948. After the war, the family moved to St. Johns.
Mariah attended Portland Community College and graduated in 1972 with an associate degree as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). Though she was told by an English teacher that she couldn’t become a nurse because she was Black and “intellectually inferior,” Mariah was determined to get her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She was the only Black student in her class at Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University in Ashland) and hers was the only Black family living in that Ashland community. The family faced racism and white supremacist terrorism: a cross was burned on the lawn of their home. Despite these challenges, she persevered and graduated in 1977 with her BSN. In 1979, she earned a Master of Science in Nursing and certification as a pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP) from the University of Colorado Medical Center in 1979. Later, in 1992, she would earn a PhD from Linfield College in McMinnville.
In 1982, Mariah and Juretta Oliver Webb, the first Black graduate of Providence School of Nursing, co-founded the North Portland Nurse Practitioner Community Center. Mariah focused on total pediatric primary care, and Juretta provided women’s care. Dr. Walter C. Reynolds, the first Black graduate of OHSU, provided the nurse practitioners with a space in his new, state-of-the-art Phil Reynolds Medical Clinic.
“The late Juretta Webb and I had faced discrimination too long and I worked with her to implement the North Portland Nurse Practitioner Community Health Clinic inside of Dr. Walter C. Reynolds’ clinic at 15 N. Morris across from Dawson Park. We implemented the grassroots, community-based clinic November 3, 1980. Dr. Reynolds was my role model, as well as Dr. Denorval Unthank. Dr. Unthank took his children along with him on house calls; well, I made house calls on an old orange-colored bike with the basket in the front to hold my medical bag (I still have it).”
Later, Mariah moved her clinic to 5311 N. Vancouver Avenue. In 1984, the clinic became a United Way agency. The most common health problems treated at the clinic were poverty-related, with funding for treatment coming from donations and foundations. The clinic also gave the community fresh produce, milk, and clothes. The clinic received funding from United Way and Multnomah County, but Taylor often used her money to fill unmet needs—for eyeglasses, clothing, or medicines.
“My clinic is most frequently called “The Clinic of Last Resort,” for I serve the working poor who seek help only when other personal options have failed them.”
For over 45 years, Mariah has empathetically served the neediest clients in the greater Portland metropolitan area. In 2000, Mariah’s daughter successfully nominated her for the Oprah Winfrey Angel Network Use Your Life Award. Her daughter says her mother lives out her motto, “God helps those who help others.” The Use Your Life Award funds provided health care and medicine to uninsured children and expanded the North Portland Nurse Practitioner Community Health Center staff.
Mariah has received many well-deserved recognitions, including her own Hometown Hero trading card, and most would agree that her life experiences, faith, and positivity propelled her longstanding quest to help those in need.
“God has been more than good to me to see over 40,000 children (birth-21 years of age) and have some come to me decades larter to say: “thank you for your care.” As a community leader and one who ministers to others, especially to the homeless, I also take the time to take care of myself and am in the Matt Dishman pool six days each week.”
