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The Journal of Anne Reading: From Florence Nightingale to Dorothea Dix and Beyond

by Margaret Garrett Irwin

226 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); historical journal; catalogue #05-2114; ISBN 1-4120-7219-0; US$19.00, C$21.85, EUR15.61, £10.93

From Florence Nightingale to Dorothea Dix and Beyond - Anne Reading, an ordinary woman from London, describes her extraordinary life in the Crimea and during the American Civil War and afterwards.

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About the Book

About the Author

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About the Book

Anne Reading, an ordinary woman from London describes her extraordinary life. In 1855 she travels to the Crimea with Florence Nightingale and nurses the sick and wounded of the British Army. Five years later, she takes a six week voyage to New York aboard a sailing ship.

Anne finds work at St. Luke's hospital. The following year brings the start of the Civil War. In 1862 Anne leaves St. Luke's and travels south to the headquarters of the Union Army in Washington. She was hired by Dorothea Dix, Superintendent of female nurses to the Federal Army and also known as the American Florence Nightingale.

Anne's saga becomes the story of her life among the wounded. She describes experiences on hospital ships and in a former hotel converted into a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. The diary chronicles the impact of atrocities on the soldiers. The general social unrest which developed in the northern cities as the war continues and the riots against the drafting of young men into the army against their will, makes very interesting reading.

Anne married Andrew Furry in October, 1862 and soon gave up nursing and returned to the New York area. She does different work while waiting for him to be released from the army. She provides a detailed account of the death of President Lincoln and an eye witness account of his lying in state and funeral procession through New York in 1865.

The diary continues with the Furrys' married life in Pennsylvania and New Jersey highlighted with the marriage of Anne's younger sister, Jenny and a swimming party at Coney Island. In 1870, Anne Furry's mother, Anne Reading writes about her trip to visit her daughter, with another daughter and the diary closes with the two of them returning to Bethnal Green, London, one year later.

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About the Author

Margaret Garrett Irwin has been writing for about eighteen years and has some published articles. She was born in Muswell Hill, London in 1937 and lived in England through World War II and the austere years afterwards. She was educated in England but obtained an Associate of Arts degree in Fresno, California. She has two diplomas from the Long Ridge Writers Group.

Margaret was a secretary for seven years before moving to California in 1962. She married a cattle rancher and has written about how she went from being a London secretary to a California cowgirl. Margaret has a son and a daughter and one grandson.

Margaret divorced in 1983. She found a very different clerical world. She worked at a variety of jobs, secretarial, Avon sales, telemarketing, weight loss counselor; following a serious illness in 1991, she became a care giver. She also is a water aerobics instructor. She is an avid reader, plays the piano, sings and knits. Margaret writes when she has time.

In 1994 Margaret married the love of her life, Johnston Irwin, an Irishman from near Belfast. They met in Fresno, California. They moved to the Central California coast for seven years and for the past two years have lived near Yosemite.

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Excerpts

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Catalogue Information

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