Henrico Black History Month Spotlight – Eddie Mary Wilson Cargill
In honor of February as Black History Month, the Henrico Citizen will spotlight (on each weekday during the month) an important current or former Black resident of Henrico whose life has helped shape the county.
Colonel Eddie Mary Wilson Cargill, a decorated Army nurse and lifelong community volunteer whose service spanned multiple wars and continents, left a lasting imprint on both the military and Central Virginia before her death in 2011.
Born May 18, 1920, in Sussex County, Cargill was named for an uncle and was one of triplets — the youngest in a family of seven children. After her parents separated, she and two sisters moved with their mother, educator Louise Banks Cargill, to the Richmond area, where her mother continued teaching. Cargill graduated from Armstrong High School and went on to study at Virginia State College and Howard University.
Her commitment to medicine culminated in a nursing degree in 1951 from the St. Philip Hospital School of Nursing, followed by a master’s degree from the University of California in 1957.
While working in New York in the early 1950s, Cargill opted to enlist in the Army Nurse Corps against her mother’s wishes. Her military career would take her across Europe and into combat zones in Korea and Vietnam. Rising through the ranks, she became one of the earliest African-American Army nurses promoted to colonel and received the Bronze Star for her service.
Colleagues later noted that she “used her training to better the lives of civilians wherever she served,” a reflection of her humanitarian approach both in uniform and beyond it.
After retiring from the Army in 1973, Cargill returned to Central Virginia and Henrico County and devoted herself to volunteer work well into her eighties. In 2000, she received the Clara Barton Award — the highest volunteer honor bestowed by the American Red Cross — from its Richmond chapter. Two years later, Commonwealth Catholic Charities recognized her with the Samuel H. Dibert Community Service Award.
Cargill died on Nov. 16, 2011 at age 91 and was laid to rest at Roselawn Memory Gardens in Glen Allen.
