National Library of Jamaica WRITEFULLY YOURS Nurse, entrepreneur, humanitarian Bever1ey East Secole's own determination that Contributor HER CAREER STORY got her to the Crimea. At the age of 50 Mary formed a business N CELEBRATION of Black and raised the necessary capital rHistory Month I would like to Unlike Florence who worked in the to travel a three thousand mile focus on our heritage and security of Scutari many miles from the front­ journey. look at some of the careers of She arrived at the Crimea as a people from our history. Some of line, Mrs. Secacole was frequently seen on the sutler, (a person who sells provi­ my favourite role models are battlefield tending the wounded. She was also sions, liquor to the troops) not as Marcus Garvey, Mary Seacole, a nurse. 'If you cannot go Langston Hughes, Zora Neale known for the charitable aspects of her work. through the front door side-step Hurston, Madam CJ. Walker and slip in through the side and Paul Robeson. When we Seacole' has become the raised in Kingston, Her mother, a door', may have been her look at the achievements of these forgotten heroine of that period. free Black woman owned a hotel thinking. people we should never look at This is her story. called Blundell Hall where TENDEDTHE WOUNDED our careers and say, "I cannot." In order to truly understand British sailors and soldiers Unlike Florence who worked Mary Seacole made an excep­ Mary Seacole's achievements, stationed in the nearby camp of in the security of Scutari many tional contribution to the society her work must be measured Up Park or the military station at miles from the frontline, Mrs. in which she lived and conse­ against tQe time in which she Newcastle were entertained. Secacole wasfrequently seenon the quently she deserves the honour lived and the restrictions under By the late 40s she had battlefield tending thewounded. She of mention in our history books which she had to operate. She travelled all over the Caribbean was also known for the charitable but somehow she rarely even was born before Britain abol­ region, notably to Nassau, Haiti, aspects of her work. merits a footnote. ished the slave trade in 1807 and Cuba and PaniiJila. Her reputa­ An average work.day for the By comparison, her contempo­ she was married and widowed tion as a 'doctrees' became doctress begins at 7:00a.m. and rary, Florence Nightingale before the Emancipation Act was greater than her mother's. ends at 9:00p.m. When the wat received national acclaim for her affected. Diseases such as cholera, yellow ended abruptlyin 1855, she work and her name is known When she was risking her life fever, malaria and small pox fre­ returned to London with little fan­ throughout the English speaking for Queen and country on the quently attacked islanders. The fare for her achievements and hard worid. Both women found their battlefield of the Crimea many of first national test of Mary's heal­ work. She died in London May vocation in the nursing profes- her fellow West Indians were ing skills came during the 1881. .sion but while the European still enslaved in all, but name . Kingston cholera epidemic of When your career paths seems in woman's strength lay admin­ LYNCH MOBS 1850. Her husband was Horatio challenging remember this quote: istration the Caribbean/West Seacole. "Your crown has been paid for Indian displayed the skill of a At the time of her death in . The desire to travel came from all you have to do is wear it" surgeon and was noted for her 1881 black people in South the stories she grew up hearing There is nothing that you want healing hands. America were still not free and from the soldiers. to achieve that is not doable. Afro-Americans in the north, Others before us with less FORGOmN HEROINE History books tell us that Mary after less than 20 years of free­ was Florence Nightingale's resources, education and money History still pays tribute to the dom were suffering at the hands assistant, but while the woman have succeeded. 'Lady of the Lamp' Florence of lynch mobs. with the lamp had not accepted In celebration of Black History . Nightingale but 'Mother Mary Seacole was born and Mary's assistance , it was Mary month - hail to all nurses FILE A portrait of Jamaica's Mary Seacole, daughter of a Scottish sailor and coloured mother, born near St. Elizabeth in the 1800s. .