Nurses Week and Five Famous Nurses

This Week 38 of my Gratitude Journal.

I am Grateful for the Existances of the Nursing Profession and Nurses.

International Nurses week (IND) is celebrated around the world every 6-12 May. This day is celebrated to remember all of the valuable contributions nurses make to society.

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has celebrated this day since 1965. In 1953 Dorothy Sutherland, an official with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, had proposed that then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaim a "Nurses Day," but he did not approve it.[1]

In January 1974, the decision was made to celebrate the day on 12 May as it is the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered the founder of modern nursing. Each year, ICN prepares and distributes the International Nurses' Day Kit. The kit contains educational and public information materials, for use by nurses everywhere.

As Florence Nightingale is no longer seen as a role model in some parts of the world, demands have arisen, for example by the British public sector union UNISON, to transfer this day on another date.[2] 21 May, the birthday of Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845), has been suggested. Elizabeth Fry founded the Institution of Nursing Sisters and is also known for her work with prisoners.[3]

As of 1998, May 8th was designated as annual National Student Nurses Day. As of 2003, the Wednesday within National Nurses Week, between May 6th and May 12th, is National School Nurse Day.[4]

[edit] UK celebrations
Each year on 12 May service is held in Westminster Abbey in London. During the Service, a symbolic Lamp is taken from the Nurses' Chapel in the Abbey and handed from one nurse to another, thence to the Dean, who places it on the High Altar. This signifies the passing of knowledge from one nurse to another. At St Margaret's Church at East Wellow in Hampshire, where Florence Nightingale is buried, a service is also held on the Sunday after her birthday.[5]

Below are the Biographies of 5 ( Of Oh So Many,Most Unkown and UnNamed) Nurses in History:

NURSE HELEN FAIRCHILD
Nurse Helen Fairchild, RN was born on the 21st. November 1885 in Turbot Township, Milton, in central Pennsylvania and graduated as a nurse from Pennsylvania Hospital in 1913. One month after America declared war on April 6th. 1917, Helen volunteered to go overseas with 63 other nurses from Pennsylvania Hospital. She was assigned to duty as a Nurse on the 7th. May 1917 and nursed in Flanders during the Battle of Passchendaele (3rd. Ypres).

She had a history of abdominal pain after meals before she left for France and during November 1917 she suffered from a recurrence. By Christmas she was vomiting after every meal and a Barium meal X-Ray revealed a large gastric ulcer obstructing her pylorus. She underwent a gastro-enterostomy operation for the pyloric obstruction on the 13th. January 1918. Initially she did well but she became jaundiced on the third day postoperatively and deteriorated rapidly, dying in a coma at 11.20 AM on the 18th. January 1918.

Nurse Fairchild's cause of death was attributed to acute atrophy of the liver. A postmortem examination was performed and the report can be viewed at the end of this document by clicking on the link. The final cause of death was considered to be a result of hepatic complications of the chloroform used for her general anaesthetic.



She wrote 100 pages of letters during her time in France and her letters home have been collected by her niece, Mrs Nelle Fairchild Rote. A selection of these letters were originally published in an article in the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine by Mrs Rote and they are reproduced here by kind permission of the author who can be contacted by E-mail at: elle12@ptd.net

Dr Geoffrey Miller



NURSE HELEN FAIRCHILD,
MY AUNT, MY HERO

By NELLE FAIRCHILD ROTE;

REPRINTED FROM DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 1997, VOL. 131, NO. 9



NURSE HELEN FAIRCHILD

As a little girl I knew how proud my father was of his sister who had been a nurse in World War 1. When the boys in the fourth grade said, "She doesn't count, she's a girl," I was stung by their unfairness. How could anyone say she was not a veteran too?

"Oh the stories I'll tell when I get home" wrote Nurse Helen Fairchild in 1917, while serving with the American Expeditionary Force in France. Aunt Helen, 32, volunteered to be one of the first to go overseas after the United States entered World War 1, April 5th, 1917. She volunteered to go to the "Front," July 31, 1917, to Casualty Clearing Station No. 4. Through her letters written to her family, which have been so lovingly preserved, Nurse Fairchild is at last telling her story:



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PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL UNIT, Saturday, May 8, 1917
Dear Brother,
Monday I got a telegram telling me to be here ready to go abroad by Friday, so here I am, waiting for the pokey old government to get things ready for us to go. I am grateful to be one of the ones to go, but feel sorry for Mother... if only she wouldn't worry so much. Don't feel uneasy about me, ever, for the folks at home will he notified immediately if anything should happen.

Heaps of love, and write me right away,
Lovingly, Sis

MIDLAND ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, May 26, 1917
Dear Mother,
Someday I will write you all that has happened from the time we left New York last Saturday. We sailed at noon and by 6 o'clock pm I felt as if the floors were coming up to meet me, and the whole universe was whirling. You can see I didn't waste much time getting seasick, and I like to die all day Sunday and Monday. Then on Tuesday morn we had to have para-typhoid
vaccine. Everybody had to take it and everybody had quite a reaction. We were on the boat just eight days.

Heaps of love, your very own, Helen.

.I forgot to tell you that we wear uniforms all the time, and our street uniforms are heavy dark blue serge, made very military, one piece, with big broad pleats over the shoulders with rows of big, black buttons down both sides, and swirls, with panels front and back, made quite short little
white bands around the collar and sleeves, and sort blue hats. At first we didn't like the idea of having to wear uniforms all the time, but we have learned the wisdom of it now, for it gives protection, and everywhere we go they leave us in without charges whatever.

Waldorf Hotel, England, June 2, 1917

Dear Mother,

...in a restaurant the orchestra played the Star Spangled Banner, and maybe we didn't cheer! You never appreciate your own National Air until you hear it in some foreign land. Everyone living in London has been lovely to us, but the Americans living here are particularly so.

On Wednesday we had tea at the Astor country home, and yesterday six of us had tea with Miss Emily Sergeant, a sister of John Sargeant, who is considered America's most famous artist, so you can see we are getting well treated, but at that, I am ready to go back work.

Don't worry if you don't hear from me, for you will be cabled promptly if anything goes wrong.

Heaps of love, your very own, Helen

Base Hospital No. 10, Le Treport, France

Dear Mother,

The wind is whistling around the hut. I do not mind the rain so much, but the wind makes me cross, and it blows a perfect gale, even in perfect weather. You should see our clothes, no fancy things for us. I have 2 rain hats and 2 raincoats and a pair of rubber boots, so we never stay in on account of rain. One soldier said, "I didn't know American girls were so ugly."

After finding a rickety old Ford to take us, went shopping in Dieppe today on our half day off. I bought a knitted underskirt and a pair of the heaviest shoes l have ever had, great high ones too, cost fifteen dollars.

One has to pay well for everything here, but I am going to keep warm if possible. I had a notion to have you send me some shoes, as it is often impossible to find shoes here that we can wear, as they are such queer shapes.

Heaps and heaps of love, your very own,

Helen.


Nurse Helen Fairchild

THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES - PAASCHENDAELE, WORLD WAR I
The casualty clearing stations were frequently the scene of the most distressing sight which human eye can witness, that is the re-wounding and killing of already wounded men by an enemy's bomb dropped suddenly in the dead of night. There was hardly a moonlight night that the Hun did not visit our neighborhood and drop bombs. We dug below the level of the ground to form shallow graves, two by six, by eighteen inches deep, which were dug through the floor of our tents, and when the anti-aircraft guns were shooting and particles of the exploded shells were falling, we partly closed over a section of the floor of the tent which was hinged and which
had a piece of sheet iron nailed on the underside.

I was impressed with the bravery and fortitude of the women nurses. Night bombing is a terrifying thing, and those who are not disturbed by it possess unusual qualities. I believe the nurses showed less fear than anyone. In 1920 I had the opportunity to visit this casualty clearing station area again, where I found only a few of the metal huts standing, but was able to locate the nurses dug-out, and the holes in the ground where they slept,

Nurse Fairchild represented the truest type of womanhood and stood for the very best in the nursing profession.

Ida Downs, Pennsylvania Hospital, U.S.A.



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From Base Hospital No. 10, Paul B. Hoeber later wrote:

"Upon their arrival, sixty four American nurses were faced with a 2,000 bed hospital. The first hard experience came when an exceedingly large convoy of patients, overwhelmed by Mustard gas, and the picture of intense suffering, poured in on them in great numbers... 600 in less than 48 hours, and it was repeated for many a night.



Casualty Clearing Station No. 4, [Ypres-Passchendaele area]

August 1917

Dear Mother,

...I am with an operating team about 100 miles from our own Base Hospital, closer to the fighting lines. I'll sure have a lot to tell about this experience when I get home. I have been here three weeks and see no signs of going back yet, altho when we came we only expected to be here a few days. Of course, I didn't bring much with me. Had two white dresses and two aprons, and two combinations. Now can you imagine trying to keep decent with that much clothing in a place where it rains nearly every day. We all live in tents and wade through mud to and from the operating room where we stand in mud higher than our ankles. It was some task, but dear old Major Harte, who I am up here with, got a car and a man; to go down to our hospital and get us some things. He brought me six clean uniforms and aprons, beside heaps of notes from all the nurses, letters from home and all kinds of fruit and cake.

We made the trip up to this place in an auto-ambulance 100 miles through France. Oh I shall have books to tell when I get home.



Wounded soldiers at a Casualty Clearing Station, waiting to be taken to a Base Hospital.




Chief Nurse Julia Stimson was concerned for the nurses she sent for temporary duty at the casualty clearing stations.

Nurse Stimson wrote:

"...what with the steam, the ether, and the filthy clothes of the men...the odor in the operating room was so terrible that it was all any of them could do to keep from being sick...no mere handling of instruments and sponges, but sewing and tying up and putting in drains while the doctor takes the next piece of shell out of another place. Then after fourteen hours of this with freezing feet, to a meal of tea and bread and jam, then off to rest if you can, in a wet bell tent in a damp bed without sheets, after a wash with a cupful of water...one need never tell me that I women can't do as much, stand as much, and be as brave as men."



Base Hospital No. 10, October 1917

Dear Mother,

I hope by next summer I can be home to help eat the peaches Irma tells me you are putting up. One of the girls brought me some great big, dandy ones a day or two ago, but they were so bitter I couldn't eat them.

Just as soon as I get home I am going to get dresses all colors of the rainbow, but never again blue serge or a blue felt hat. Gee, now I know how the kids in orphan asylums must feel when they all have to wear the same kind of clothes.

Another of our operating team left for a place further up the lines this am. They went to relieve Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Packard and Miss McClelland, who have been up there since July 21st, and who are tired out. This team will take their place so they can come home.

Rained some last night and is frightfully windy and cold. I put on some woolen clothing for we do not have any fires in the hut yet, but in spite of two pairs of stockings my feet are cold. Right now I stopped writing and got two hot water bottles and have my feet on one and the other in my lap.

Please write letters often, they mean more to me than a package, for I get a little homesick sometimes.

Heaps and heaps of love and a big kiss to every one,

your very own, Helen.

THE LAST LETTER SENT HOME

Base Hospital No. 10, December 28, 1917

Dear Mother,

Had a letter from the States this week and was glad, for being sick this far from home is no fun, but everyone has been fine to me. My room is filled with flowers they bring me, and fruit galore. Miss Dunlop does everything she can to make me comfortable and came in and talked with me every couple of hours. She wanted me to come up in the cot in her sitting room, but I did not want to do that, for Wagner wanted me to stay in our own room where she could do things for me. Wagner sure is a friend indeed.

Dr. Norris was just in to see me and told me I could stop some of my medicine. He said my throat looked much better but I still can't go on duty "till I eat and get some color, so I see my finish, for as usual, I look like the wrath of Kingdom come, but I'll make them let me go back soon, for it's too lonesome here to be off duty.

Gee but I'll be glad to see you all by the time this war is over, but at the same time I am glad to be here to help take care of these poor men, and I'll be doubly glad when our own U.S. boys will be [in this part of France] with us, for they will be so far from home, and they will have no one but us American nurses to really take any genuine interest in them, for their own friends will not be able to reach them.

What the Red Cross and the YMCAs are doing for us here means so much to us. Really, it would be awful to get along without the things they send us. Most of the pleasure that the troops get are the ones provided by the YMCA.

If you could only see what the boys here have to go through sometimes, you would see they need all the comfort possible. Without the supplies sent to us by the Red Cross Society, we could not do half as much for them as we are.

Please tell me what it was that everyone seems to have heard concerning me at home. Of course, whatever it was, as you know, is not correct, for as I have told you often, anytime anything should happen, you would be notified.

Heaps of love, your very own, Helen.

War Department

Office of the Surgeon General

Washington, D.C.

January 24, 1918

Mr. Ambrose Fairchild

Allenwood, Union County, Pennsylvania

Dear Mr. Fairchild,

It is with regret that I have to inform you of the death of your daughter, Miss Helen Fairchild, RN, on January 18, 1918, while on duty with Base Hospital #10, American Expeditionary Forces, France.

D.E. Thompson, Superintendent Army Nurse Corps

The cause of Nurse Fairchild's death was "acute atrophy of the liver," according to General John J. Pershing. Exploratory surgery revealed a massive stomach ulcer, caused or made worse by exposure to Mustard gas and other gasses used by the enemy. The word was she gave her gas mask to a soldier. She was given a military funeral, a "most solemn and impressive ceremony, and buried in the uniform of an American Army nurse. Her funeral was attended by an entire garrison of English, Canadian, French and American officers, nurses and troops." Buried first in Mont Huron Cemetery, Le Treport, her body was removed to the Somme American Cemetery and Memorial, Bony, France; plot A, Row 15, grave 13.

Upon the organization of the Nurses' Post of the American Legion at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1919, it was named the Helen Fairchild Nurses' Post 412, of the American Legion.

Helen Fairchild is registered in Women In Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington Cemetery, Virginia. Helen's sister, Christine McFarland, at 92, had the pleasure of registering her in the Memorial. Aunt Chris died in 1993. She was grateful that the stories of all women veterans would be preserved, upon the completion of this great Museum and Memorial.

The Women In Military Service for America Museum and Memorial, WIMSA, planned to display Nurse Fairchild's artifacts in their World War I display, but World War II has been given priority for the opening in October. As funds become available, the World War I exhibit will be completed.

Anyone may register the name of any woman veteran or veteran health caregiver, and is urged to do so. Contributions are also needed to reach the goal. The address is: WIMSA, Dept. 560., Washington, D.C. 20042-0560.



Kathleen Hall RGN, RM
(1896 - 1970)

Kathleen Hall was born in Napier, New Zealand in 1896 and later moved to Auckland. There she trained at Auckland Public Hospital.

In 1922 she was accepted by the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for missionary work in China. Before leaving New Zealand she successfully undertook midwifery training at St Helen's hospital in Christchurch.

In North China at that time there was one outstanding hospital where western medicine was practised, the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC). It was a very advanced institution, funded by the American Rockefeller Foundation and operated by British and American Protestant missions.

After several years language training and professional practice there, Kathleen was appointed Sister-in-Charge of a provincial hospital at Datong, later being transferred to the same position at Hejian and Anguo in Hebei Province.

She became acquainted with the deplorable living conditions in the Hebei mountains and in 1934 she obtained the permission of her Bishop to leave the cities and set up her own cottage hospital in the mountain village of Songjiazhuang.

In 1937 she had to return temporarily to take charge of the hospital at Anguo on the plains and she was in charge there when the Japanese invaded.

There was a great battle nearby, the Chinese were defeated and hers was the only hospital for hundreds of miles. The doctors fled and with a few Chinese nurses she was left to deal with many hundred casualties.

As the Japanese pushed southwards, she was able to return to her own hospital in the mountains, to find that it was now in "no-man's land" between the Chinese guerilla forces and the Japanese. With her British passport she could move comparatively freely, and before long she was making long journeys to Peking to purchase medical supplies, much of which she passed on to the Chinese army, until caught by the Japanese.

They put her on a ship for New Zealand, but she disembarked at Hong Kong and joined the Chinese Red Cross. She made a dangerous journey through inland China to rejoin the 8th Route Army. Eventually she was struck down with beriberi, and repatriated to New Zealand.

After the war the helped to establish a model leper colony in Hong Kong, and in her final years of service she worked with the Anglican Maori Mission at Te Kuiti and Waitara.

In retirement she devoted her life to telling New Zealanders the truth about China. She worked very hard to bring the various Friendship groups in Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch together to form the NZ-China Friendship Society, which was inaugurated in Wellington in 1958, with Kathleen as a member of the first National Committee.

She was able to revisit China twice more, in 1960 and 1964. She died in Hamilton in 1970.

In 1993 a delegation of friends and relatives carried her ashes back to China in accordance with her wishes.

In 1996 the local people of Quyang County celebrated the centennial of her birth by creating a beautiful marble statue and setting it up in the village of Songjiazhuang where she had established her clinic.

A China Today article published in 1997 describes this moving event, and gives more details of Kathleen's life.

In 2000, her clinic was rebuilt with a donation of $15,000 from our Society, which has been tripled by a subsidy from the N.Z. Government. The completion of the rebuilding project was celebrated in June 2000 and the clinic was officially reopened in July 2001. Click here to view pictures of both celebrations.

Margaret Sanger

Many don't realize the very short period of time in our history we as a society have been allowed to participate in using birth control. Many are also unaware that we contribute the advocacy and use of birth control to famed nurse Margaret Sanger. Her crusade to legitimize birth control and give women the right to choose was one that showed much opposition from not only the government but also the Catholic Church. But no one understood the importance of birth control more than Sanger. She was the sixth of eleven children, whose mother died while she was young and whose death was attributed to her many pregnancies. Sanger started her career working in the poor ghettos of New York City, seeing first hand the atrocities that came with complicated pregnancies and self-abortions. As a nurse, she realized the only way to combat these problems was to target the source of the problem: child birth. This would begin her crusade to educate the poor working class about birth control, in addition to several writings which discussed elements of growth for young women. Throughout her career she would be resisted by those who thought her teachings were lewd or pornographic, as in the early twentieth century it was not customary to discuss sexual relations in public. The Catholic Church also showed much opposition as her teachings went against the churches, but back down over time as they decided to focus on teaching abstinence to their followers as a means to control birth. Sanger would spent her later years spreading her message to the more elite in order to convince them of the needs of birth control and education in order to reach a much larger audience.

Margaret Sanger

Many don't realize the very short period of time in our history we as a society have been allowed to participate in using birth control. Many are also unaware that we contribute the advocacy and use of birth control to famed nurse Margaret Sanger. Her crusade to legitimize birth control and give women the right to choose was one that showed much opposition from not only the government but also the Catholic Church. But no one understood the importance of birth control more than Sanger. She was the sixth of eleven children, whose mother died while she was young and whose death was attributed to her many pregnancies. Sanger started her career working in the poor ghettos of New York City, seeing first hand the atrocities that came with complicated pregnancies and self-abortions. As a nurse, she realized the only way to combat these problems was to target the source of the problem: child birth. This would begin her crusade to educate the poor working class about birth control, in addition to several writings which discussed elements of growth for young women. Throughout her career she would be resisted by those who thought her teachings were lewd or pornographic, as in the early twentieth century it was not customary to discuss sexual relations in public. The Catholic Church also showed much opposition as her teachings went against the churches, but back down over time as they decided to focus on teaching abstinence to their followers as a means to control birth. Sanger would spent her later years spreading her message to the more elite in order to convince them of the needs of birth control and education in order to reach a much larger audience.

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892): Few people realize that the famous poet was also a volunteer nurse. Whitman worked as a nurse at Army hospitals set up during the Civil War. Many of his observations during this time led to his “The Great Army of the Sick.” Whitman was known for his egalitarian views, as well as for his political interest and poems.
Walt Whitman, 1887
Born May 31, 1819(1819-05-31)
West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York, U.S.
Died March 26, 1892 (aged 72)
Camden, New Jersey, U.S.

Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.[2][3]

Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions.[4] However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men.[5] Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.[6

Hazel W. Johnson-Brown:
The first African-American woman general in history, Hazel W. Johnson-Brown is also a skilled nurse. She served as the chief of the Army Nurse Corps. and served as dean of the Walter Reed Army Institute School of Nursing. She was introduced to the army while working at a Veteran’s hospital. It is hard to believe, considering her accomplishments, that she was first rejected for nursing school at the West Chester School of Nursing because of her race.
Hazel Johnson-Brown made military history when she became the first African American woman general in 1979. She entered the U.S. Army in 1955, shortly after President Harry Truman banned segregation in the armed services. When she retired from the military in 1983, the list of credentials Johnson-Brown had accumulated was impressive. Some of the positions she held included project director at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command in Washington, D.C.; dean of the Walter Reed Army Institute School of Nursing; and special assistant to the chief of the U.S. Army Medical Command in Korea. She reached the pinnacle of her military career when she was appointed Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, with the rank of Brigadier General.
Born in 1927 in Malvern, Pennsylvania and one of seven children, she was raised on her father’s farm in nearby West Chester. Inspired by a local white public heath nurse when she was 12, Johnson decided that she too would become a nurse. She applied to the West Chester School of Nursing, but was rejected because she was black. She did not, however, let this stand in her way. She left West Chester for New York City in 1947, and enrolled in the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing.

After graduating, she went to work at the Philadelphia Veteran’s Hospital in 1953. It was there that her colleagues noticed her natural leadership abilities, and suggested she join the Army. After one meeting with a recruiter, she enlisted for what she thought would be a two-year tour. Instead, she swiftly rose through the ranks, enjoying a remarkable military career that spanned almost three decades.

As the first African American appointed as Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, Johnson commanded 7,000 male and female nurses in the Army National Guard and Army Reserves. She also set policy and oversaw operations in eight Army medical centers, fifty-six community hospitals and one hundred forty-three freestanding clinics in the United States, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Panama.

While in the army, she continued her formal education, earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Villanova University, a master’s degree in nursing education from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in education administration from Catholic University. Two years before retiring from the army in 1983, she married David Brown.

Following her retirement, Johnson-Brown enjoyed a distinguished “second” career in academia. She served as professor of nursing at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and finally at George Mason University in Virginia. At George Mason University, she was instrumental in founding the Center for Health Policy, designed to educate and involve nurses in health policy and policy design.

She retired from teaching in 1997. She continues to live in the Washington area, serving on a variety of university and health administration boards.