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Vera Bailey’s journey to Hilton Head started in a small West African country, but long before she moved here with a mission to help pregnant women, she already had roots in South Carolina.
Bailey, executive director of the Pregnancy Center and Clinic of the Lowcountry, was born in Liberia, but her upbringing was more American than one might imagine.
“Our culture was very Americanized because that was our background,” she said. “Liberia looked to America as a big brother.”
That’s because the region was colonized by freed slaves, who officially founded the Republic of Liberia in 1847, modeling its government and way of life on that of the United States. Among those founders — who came to be known as Americo-Liberians — were Bailey’s ancestors, who once toiled as slaves in South Carolina.
At age 5, Bailey was sent to neighboring Sierra Leone for a British education until age 9 and then to England, where she graduated from high school.
She journeyed to America at 18 to study nursing in Staten Island, N.Y., and graduated from Wagner College in 1972. Returning to Liberia, she took a job teaching nurses and met the man who would change her life. Joseph Bailey also taught nursing and she married him in 1974.
They had two daughters, Ihuoma and Ngoanathabo, in Liberia before moving together to New Orleans, where each earned masters degrees and doctorates at Tulane University. Getting those degrees took 10 years as they traveled back and forth between the U.S. and Liberia between 1978 and 1988. A third daughter, Karama, was born in Liberia in 1980 and their final daughter, Nayeede, was born in New Orleans in 1988.
The family again returned to Liberia but found the “American” way of life was rapidly eroding there.
The Americo-Liberians were under attack by rebels and a military coup overthrew their government, marking the beginning of political and economic instability, which led to two civil wars before a peace deal was finally reached in 2003.
From 1989 to 1996, Liberia was in the midst of one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars, which eventually led to the deaths of 200,000 people and left a million more refugees homeless.
Among those lucky enough to escape were the Baileys.
“The violence, the brutality, we had to escape our home,” Vera Bailey said. “It was a period of great unrest.”
The family moved in with Joseph’s mother, close to the U.S. embassy along with many others — 43 men, women and children shared the three bedroom home as bombs flew overhead.
For a while, Vera, Joseph and their youngest child moved to a convent to help nuns care for 800 refugees. Then, because of baby Nayeede’s U.S. citizenship, she was allowed to return to the U.S. with her mother in 1990, followed soon by the rest of the family after Joseph was offered a job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. They were granted political asylum and vowed never to return to Liberia.
America was their home now, one they cherished. And while it offered them so much, they worked hard to give back. Vera worked with an educational group until she was offered a job as the director of the Pregnancy Center and Clinic of the Lowcountry in 1995. Her husband now teaches science at the Technical College of the Lowcountry.
“I believe God leads me where he wants me to be and this was definitely the place,” she said. “It’s not a job. It’s a ministry.”
Bailey is in charge of the non-profit clinic that provides prenatal care and advice to women. She also talks to youth about abstinence and choices that could impact their futures. She works with other non-profits to help clients. Fundraising is important.
“It’s free for the clients but at great cost to us,” to run the clinic and a mobile unit, she said. Money and volunteers are always needed.
While Liberia is more stable now, most of her family is here and the U.S. is home. She and Joseph officially became citizens about six years ago.
“We are happy to have had the opportunity to settle and start afresh,” she said. “America has been good to us.”
