Anna S. Berrien, 78; Howard Nurse Made A Mean Poundcake

Anna S. Berrien, 78, a nurse at Howard University Hospital who was known in her off-duty life for her "stunningly moist poundcake," died Nov. 13 at her Silver Spring home after a heart attack.

Mrs. Berrien worked at the old Freedman's Hospital in the 1950s and 1960s, choosing to work on the tuberculosis ward, where people with the highly contagious and often fatal disease were housed.

She worked the midnight shift to spend more time with her children and rushed home when she got off her shift at 8 a.m. to do her daughter's hair and get her school in time for the 8:30 a.m. bell.

When Freedman's became Howard University Hospital in 1975, Mrs. Berrien remained on staff. She retired in 1984.

Vivacious and spirited, she loved dancing and patiently taught younger dancers the Electric Slide. She had learned to cook as a young woman and created Sunday dinners full of Southern food: greens, macaroni and cheese and especially her poundcake. "If you were there, you were eating," said her daughter, Jacqueline Ann Berrien Williams of Brooklyn, N.Y.

She also enjoyed flower gardening, shopping, theater, concerts and sports, especially football, basketball, tennis and golf, after Tiger Woods emerged.

Born Anna Belle Smith in Stanford, Ky., she moved 100 miles away to Louisville after graduating from high school to become a live-in domestic worker. While there, she learned from her high school principal that the federal government would pay for her to study nursing in Washington.

She moved to the District in 1950 and enrolled in the nursing school at Freedman's Hospital. Without financial support from her family, who were of modest means, she was considered an employee of the federal government while a student.

She often told people that her high school had not prepared her for the chemistry classes, so it took her two tries to pass the licensing exam. She wanted family members to know that her accomplishments had not come easily. Her uniform and nurse's cap were always starched and spotless.

She married a Howard pharmacy student in 1955 and settled in the Takoma section of Washington and joined the Catholic Church of the Nativity, where she did volunteer work.

In 1996, she and her husband made a religious pilgrimage to Rome where they joined an audience with Pope John Paul II.

After her husband, Clifford Berrien, died in 1998, she moved from Washington to the Charter House complex in Silver Spring, where she won the "Good Neighbor" award twice for her helpfulness. She also took part in any activity that would allow her to line dance.

Besides her daughter, survivors include a son, Clifford Eric Berrien of Tucson; a sister; and a brother. Mrs. Berrien also had multiple surrogate grandchildren as well as godchildren, including Yvette Alexander, a D.C. Council member.

-- Patricia Sullivan