Product Description

When John's pa has his leg crushed riding timber down the tumbling streams to the mill, the granny woman can't help. If he loses his leg, the entire family will suffer because he won't be able to work. Luckily it's eastern Kentucky in the early years of this century, and Mary Breckinridge has arrived on horseback to help. When a mountain man's wife dies, he takes his twin babies and young daughter Pearl, who has stopped talking, down the mountain to the care facility that Mary Breckinridge established to provide medical services for people in 700 square-miles of wilderness. When a young nurse from Scotland seeks adventure and a chance to use her nursing skills, she applies for a job with Mary and spends most of the rest of her life on horseback, following the mountain trails to provide vaccines, medicines, and care in the Frontier Nursing Service. Here, through the skillfully told stories of three lives that were changed forever, a portrait of a courageous, self-assured, determined woman emerges. She is Mary Breckinridge, who through her pioneering Frontier Nursing Service, saved more lives than Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale put together, and who can serve as an American role model for young girls today. Rosemary Wells discovered Mary Breckinridge while traveling in Kentucky on a book tour. She has spent three years researching her subject in dusty archives and courthouses, and interviewing surviving relatives. Rosemary Wells lives in Westchester, New York.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #482100 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-26
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .18" h x 5.06" w x 7.90" l, .18 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Three well-honed first-person narratives add up to an outstanding biography of one remarkable woman: Mary Breckinridge, founder of the still-extant Frontier Nursing Service in the Appalachian Mountains. After being widowed twice and having lost two children, Breckenridge enrolled in nursing school, determined to help other youngsters live. Wells takes up Breckenridge's story upon her arrival in 1923 Kentucky, through the perspectives of three people whose lives were greatly affected by her mission. John Hawkins, the young son of a "river man" injured while riding newly cut logs down the rapids, tells how Mary fortuitously arrived at their doorstep before the "horse doctor with a bone saw" came to saw his father's leg off. An 18-year-old nurse who travels from her native Scotland to work with Mary describes her battle to convince the mountain residents (who are terrified of needles) to let the nurses vaccinate them against rampant diphtheria. In the finalAand most stirringAof the accounts, Pearl refuses to talk after witnessing her mother's death from childbirth. Through drafting the girl into her cause, Mary moves Pearl to speak again. Wells's careful attention to the details and hardships of mountain living authenticates these achingly real accounts, as she spells out both the enormity of Breckenridge's challenge and the triumph of even the smallest victories. McCarty's finely crafted drawings, based on actual photographs, add to the historical accuracy and elegance of the volume. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5-The practice of modern medicine was practically nonexistent in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky in the 1920s. Diphtheria, typhoid, and small pox ravaged the mountain dwellers' lives. Mary Breckinridge, herself a widow whose children had also died, decided to change things. This pioneering nurse-midwife who founded the Frontier Nursing Service is introduced through the eyes of three fictional characters whose lives are irrevocably changed by their encounters with her. Young John nearly faints at his first sight of a needle and syringe that are used to treat his injured father. Miss Ireland, an 18-year-old nurse from Scotland, braves the mountain wilderness at night to inoculate a young child. Pearl, her mamma's "ownliest sugarplum" retreats into a world of silence upon her mother's death until she is loved out of it by Mary and her nurses. Though each story is brief, Wells's realistic yet poetic prose perfectly captures the dichotomy of the majestic beauty of Appalachia and the harsh realities of mountain life. McCarty's evocative illustrations, based on photographs taken for the Frontier Nursing Service, are an ideal complement to the text. An afterword provides a brief biography of Breckinridge and information on the Frontier Nursing Service. This one's a gem.
Peggy Morgan, The Library Network, Southgate, MI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 3^-6. Three very poignant vignettes bring to life the true story of Mary Breckenridge, the unforgettable founder of the Frontier Nursing Service, which since 1925 has provided medical service to rural Appalachian Kentucky. Through the voice of a child whose father has been severely injured in a logging accident, the reader is introduced to the poverty-stricken conditions of the mountain people and to Mary, who after suffering great losses herself turned her grief into positive action, trekking around on horseback to deliver much needed help to these people. The next story is told by a nurse who came to help Mary and found herself immediately dispensing precious diphtheria serum to the children of the woods. The last story is told by a child who, after being grief stricken into silence by the death of her mother, eventually finds her voice through helping Mary and the other nurses. These are not happy stories, yet the hope that this incredible woman provided for all those she touched clearly affected many, many lives. These beautifully written stories will remain with the reader long after the book is closed; Wells has given much deserved honor to a true heroine. A brief afterword fills in the facts about Breckenridge and her nursing service. Helen Rosenberg