34. The Background of an Unlikely Heroine
Edith Cavell was born in 1865 in a small English village in East Anglia. The eldest of four children born to a vicar and his equally religious wife, Cavell received an excellent by the standards of her day. Upon graduation, she worked as a governess, including for a family in Brussels from 1890-1895. She returned to England to care for her father when he became seriously ill, and by the time he recovered, Cavell had gotten a taste for nursing.
So in 1896, she began training as nurse, and graduated two years later. Her early Christian upbringing instilled in her a sense of duty towards those less fortunate than herself, which led her to choose to work in hospitals serving the poorer parts of London. In 1907, she was invited back to Brussels to become matron, or chief nurse, of Belgium’s first modern nursing school. By 1910, Cavell had launched Belgium’s first nursing journal, and was training nurses for three hospitals, 13 kindergartens, and 24 schools.