Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-06-03
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
Angel Of the Crimea Is Still. Alive at
Ninety Years.

Florence Nightingale, the "angel OF
the Crimea" and the most famous of
the worlds living heroines, was nine
ty years old on May IL, and 1t was
upon this anniversary that the fol-
lowing reminiscence Of the great wo-
mans golden aging and the leaning
toward suffrage was told recently by
Miss Nightingale's goddaughter, Mrs
Florence Howe Hall.
1T was only the briefest visit,
said Mrs. Hall at the Hotel Judson,
In New York city, made in 1902 to
Miss Nightingale's pretty home in
Mayfair, London, where she had lain
bedridden invalid for many years
But to me it has always seemed like
a pilgrimage to holy shrine.
strangely enough, you know II
was partly upon the advice Of my
father, DR.. Samuel Howe, that she
undertook that great work to the
Crimea forty years before.
MY mother, Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe, and my father had just been
married in the early forties and were
back In England on their honeymoon
after visiting the scenes where father
had fought and 'nursed' in the Gre
clan war.
Miss Nightingale, hearing Of his
presence, came to him and asked II
great work for humanity did not lie
In the foundation of such a move
ment as has since developed into the
Red Cross. L think so, and 1 think
1t is woman's place to lead it, said
my father, and two years later Miss
Nightingale was away at the German
hospitals preparing for the events
that even she could not then have
foreSeen.
Meanwhile she had become firmly
attached to my mother and wher
some years later l was born she ask
| ed that l be given her name. She
sent me a beautifully bound volume
Of Shakespeare as birth gift, and
| think it the most treasured heirloom
in our family today.
Long, long afterward, when ,heI
fame had become worldwide in the
Crimea and after mother had also
won note through the writing of the
Battle Hymn Of the Republic Miss
Nightingale wrote to send a lock OF
| her hair to mother and to ask that
| her goddaughter visit her If ever
came to London. And years after
that when I finally did get to London
I recalled that invitation which l had
heard of as a girl and went upon the
pilgrimage to Mayfair.
"As I remember now Miss Nightin-
gale was sitting propped in bed facing
window that looked out upon a
| long vista of pretty cottages, tiny
groves and their gardens.
"She was eighty-two then, and
ever as she lay in bed l could see
that before disease wasted her form
she must have been very tall and q
very beautiful woman ~ am very
glad to see you, goddaughter. she
said, putting forth her hand and smil-
ing sweetly.
Then she asked me after my
mother; said she had never heard
such an inspiring anthem as the
Battle Hymn and wished me to con-
vey her dearest love to my parent,
whom she remembered to be just a
| little more than a year older than
| herself.
II did not press her to tell me OF
her Crimea experiences, for that was
| a subject which she had long since
put by. But I did discover that she
believed in suffragism-not the mill
tant suffragism Of the English radi-
Gals, but in a peaceful campaign that
should go on gathering volume peace
| fully through the years until 1t should
conquer from the sheer weight of its
business.
II think we talked together half an
hour Then l said goodby. | left her
home with one idea of her that has
never faded-her perfect serenity, the
serenity of a great woman who has
done a great life's work and is con-
tent to await the end"
Mrs. Hall, herself a woman of many
literary accomplishments, has been a
resident at the Hotel Judson for sew
eral years She says she believes that
Miss Nightingale has entirely aban-
doned correspondence in the philan-
thropic movements she aided until
very recently.