Evelyn Page Parker faced down a racist society to become a nurse during World War II, then devoted the rest of her life to making sure other African Americans got the support she did not.

"She's like our little Rosa Parks," friend and fellow nurse Pat Tucker said. "She's been such a trailblazer."

Mrs. Parker, of Larimer, a former University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University nursing professor and a volunteer for organizations too numerous to list, died of natural causes Wednesday. She was 86.

Mrs. Parker's son, Tom, said his mother knew she wanted to be a nurse when she was still a student at Westinghouse High School. But there was nowhere in Pittsburgh for an African-American woman to study nursing in 1940, so she headed to Philadelphia.

There Mrs. Parker enrolled in the Mercy-Douglass Hospital School for Nurses, which was specifically for African-Americans. But when she went to Philadelphia General Hospital to take a course, she found out that she could not eat in the cafeteria. She kept going there anyway, and the cooks eventually let her eat.

"Everyone started looking at her, thinking 'What's she doing here?' " Ms. Tucker said, recounting the story as she'd heard Mrs. Parker tell it. "But then they started letting African-American students eat there."

Mrs. Parker graduated in 1943 but continued to push for African-American rights. Philadelphia General Hospital opened its nursing school and internship programs to black students in 1945.

Over the next two decades, Mrs. Parker worked in public health nursing and helped found Community Nursing Services of Philadelphia. She also got married, had a son and, in 1961, earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mrs. Parker returned to Pittsburgh in the late 1960s, when she and her husband separated, and "served as both mother figure and father figure," according to her son, who was going into fourth grade at the time.

Mrs. Parker earned a master's degree from Pitt in 1969, then taught nursing there until 1981, followed by three years at Duquesne.

Throughout that time, and through her retirement, she worked tirelessly at her twin passions: nursing and helping young African Americans pursue their dreams.

She counseled students at both universities, was a staunch member of the local chapter of Black Nurses in Action, co-chaired the health committee for the American Association of Retired Persons, was active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was active in the American Heart Association's Sister to Sister program and was, as a survivor of breast cancer herself, a member of cancer survivors groups.

Mrs. Parker was also an active volunteer with the East End Cooperative Ministry and was such a fixture at the Kingsley Association in East Liberty that "you'd think she'd founded it," Ms. Tucker said.

She was a devoted member of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, ran an informal mentoring group for high school students interested in nursing, and worked one day a week in a local podiatrist's office up until last month.

"I think the challenges she faced just motivated her more," Tom Parker said. "All color barriers served as motivation."

Even so, he said, his favorite memory is when his mother, then in her early 70s, jumped up to do the electric slide at her granddaughter's first birthday party -- showing the joy she found in her life.

"She had a beautiful smile, and was full of laughter all the time," Mr. Parker said.

Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today in Coston Funeral Home, 427 Lincoln Ave., Larimer. Funeral service will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow in St. James Church, 444 Lincoln Ave., Larimer.