Dr. Jerry Ellis Seals, Howard County infectious diseases expert, dies

Dr. Jerry Ellis Seals, an infectious diseases expert who moved from the segregated South to the top of his medical field, died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease Oct. 13 at an assisted living center in Columbia. He was 76.

Dr. Seals was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to Mildred and George Seals, and grew up in segregated schools and movie theaters. At age 12, his father took a job at a steel mill in Buffalo, New York, where his mother worked as a nursing assistant. In school in Buffalo, administrators asked for Dr. Seals to repeat a grade, but his mother successfully insisted he continue on the same grade level.

Dr. Seals graduated from Bennett High School in Buffalo in 1964 and the State University of New York at Buffalo with a degree in pharmacy in 1969. He enrolled in medical school at Columbia University in New York, where he graduated in 1973.

“Jerry used to say about Mississippi if you went to see a movie and you were Black, you had to climb into the second floor to what they called the crow’s-nest. You couldn’t sit on the main floor. They were horrific conditions for somebody to be born into and then end up at Columbia,” his wife, Beverly White-Seals, said. “It’s incredible he climbed to the highest levels academically, having started at such a low level in terms of what society and the government provided for him.”

To be exempted from the draft for the Vietnam War after completing medical school and a fellowship at Columbia, Dr. Seals enrolled in a public health service program that placed him at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. While there, he researched outbreaks of infectious diseases and some of the first cases of what later became known as AIDS.

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In 1977 he met his wife, an attorney who had been transferred to Georgia by the U.S. Department of Labor. The two were at law and medical school at Columbia at the same time but never met until a mutual friend introduced them in Atlanta.

“When he drove up, he was in a silver Alfa Romeo convertible and had a stethoscope in his pocket,” Ms. White-Seals said.

The two were married in 1980 in Washington, D.C., before moving to Columbia. Ms. White-Seals worked for the Rouse Co. in Columbia and is currently president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Howard County.

In 1983 Dr. Seals opened a practice in Columbia, working through Howard County General Hospital, which is now the Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. He was the only doctor in the county with board certification for infectious diseases, and educated doctors, hospitals, schools and other community groups about AIDS. He lived by the hospital and always came home for dinner. Dr. Seals retired in 2006.

“He was a wonderful guy. His healing touched a lot of people,” Dr. Harry Oken, a former practice partner, said. “He was the go-to person in the county for infectious diseases.”

Outside work, Dr. Seals jogged, cycled and played tennis. He once completed a 100-mile bike race on the Eastern Shore.

Dr. Seals is survived by his wife, Beverly White-Seals, of Columbia; daughter Kia Seals, of Clarksville; sister, Patricia Jones, of Atlanta; brother, Benjamin Seals, of Buffalo; and one grandchild. He was preceded in death by his sons, Jarrett Seals and Kylen Seals.