Florence Nightingale, Nurse, Social Reformer
13 August -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of any Saint, page 527
Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 into a wealthy family.
In the face of their opposition, she insisted that she
wished to train in nursing. In 1853, she finally achieved
her wish and headed her own private nursing institute in
London. Her efforts at improving conditions for the wounded
during the Crimean War won her great acclaim and she devoted
the rest of her life to reforming nursing care. Her school
at St Thomas's Hospital became significant in helping to
elevate nursing into a profession. An Anglican, she
remained committed to a personal mystical religion which
sustained her through many years of poor health until her
death in 1910.