Mary Breckenridge, raised amid the graciousness of Southern plantation life, the elegance of New York society and the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Russia and Europe, seemed born to comfort and pleasure. Yet, this remarkable woman chose to dedicate her life to bringing the healing power of modern medicine to the poor but impoverished people of the Kentucky mountains.

As a nurse in the slums of New York and the war-ravaged towns of France, she first showed the fortitude and ability that would make her name a legend. After years spent in intensive study of nursing in Britain and the Scottish highlands, she felt ready for her greatest challenge—to war against the disease and tragic infant mortality that plagued the mountain people of Kentucky.

Giving almost all of her personal fortune and raising money from every possible source, she struggled to create a nursing service that would reach families who had never known the benefits of medicine. With her staff she rode horseback to the most remote cabins and worked under the most primitive conditions. In spite of fire and flood she kept her nursing centers open and even a painful spinal injury could not make her abandon her mission.

Mary Breckenridge died at the age of 84, but the Frontier Nursing Service she established lives on and with it the memory of an indomitable woman who overcame all odds to turn a humanitarian dream into a reality.

From the book