Mary Seacole

By Elliot

Hello there I am Mary Seacole. Thank you all for contributing to my fundraiser it really helps me. I recognize many faces here. Many of you I helped to nurse in the Crimea. It is very nice of you to attend this. It is just a little storytelling. My first story is about when some hotel patrons tried to compliment me by saying I would be perfect if I just bleached my skin. The truth is I always considered myself special for my lighter black skin tone. "So, I told those hotel patrons exactly what they could do with their bleach." If you didn’t get it from that hint I told them... to drink their bleach. Now let's get on with it!

I was born in 1805, in Kingston, Jamaica. I am the daughter of a free black Jamaican and a Scottish solider. I have two siblings Louisa and Edward. My mom owned the Blundell Hall Hotel. I often helped my mom and played doctor on my doll. I also traced one route on an old map in my bed room from my home in Jamaica to my dream of London. After my childhood I married my husband Edwin Seacole. We had a general store for a while but, then came back to Blundell Hall. "Then a fire raged through Jamaica and destroyed Blundell Hall. Before I could even get on my feet my mother died soon followed by my husband." I was devastated but, I got up on my feet and kept going. Then I opened my own hotel, the British hotel.

Then there was the Crimean war. I decided to go as a nurse, so I asked the army upfront. They said that I should apply to "Florence Nightingale's organized expedition of nurses". I "skipped the formality of mailing a letter and went to the organizers. My interview there was stiff and unwelcoming. They said that they already had enough nurses and left me with the impression that if there was an open spot I wouldn't have been picked. Was it the color of my skin?" I decided that if the army wouldn’t send me and the nurses wouldn’t either than I would send myself! So, there I was, in the Crimea. Nursing the sick and wounded soldiers. They began to call me mother Seacole and they were like my sons. Soon after that I went bankrupt but, in the late years of my life you all started a fund for me and I could do nothing but, smile.

Soon after she died from a stroke in London. On May 14, 1881. Ms. Seacole is a role-model for me. I would never be a nurse but, I look up to her because she spent her whole life fighting racism and sexism. I also admire that she would treat anyone who came to her. "I wish I could say history took as good care of her as her sons did" but, that’s not true. "She was a black woman in an age that looked down on both of those qualities. She would have been a role-model a self-sustaining woman but, soon after her death she was forgotten but, sometimes we can look back on the parts of history we have forgotten and the soldiers that she nursed in the Crimea will never forget her. Thank you mother Seacole! We will never forget you!"

My sources are:

“Mary Seacole.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Apr. 2014, www.biography.com/people/mary-seacole-39430.,

“Mary Seacole Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Seacole-Mary.html.,

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Mary Seacole.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Nov. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Seacole.,

“Mary Seacole Facts for Kids.” National Geographic Kids, 26 Apr. 2018, www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/history/general-history/mary-seacole/.

“Mary Jane Seacole Biography.” Mary Seacole Biography - Famous Nurse, nursing-theory.org/famous-nurses/Mary-Jane-Seacole.php.

ExtraCreditz. “Mary Seacole - I: A Bold Front to Fortune - Extra History.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Jan. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9BTuBtCJs.

Presentation Notes:__________________________________________

"Oh! Hello! It's very nice to see you all here. I just got back from the hospital tent. It's very hard work here in the Crimea, so *sigh*...so many of my sons, wounded. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you. You may ask questions just keep it snappy I'm a very busy lady. "