Mary’s Story
The life, service, and words of Mary Breckinridge — founder of the Frontier Nursing Service.
Who Was Mary Breckinridge?
Born into privilege in 1881, Mary Breckinridge could have lived a life of comfort. Instead, she chose to serve those the world had forgotten.
After losing both her children in infancy, Mary found her calling: to raise the status of childhood everywhere. She trained as a nurse in New York and later traveled to Europe, where she witnessed British nurse-midwives bringing modern healthcare to rural communities. A vision crystallized: bring this model to the most isolated corners of America.
In 1925, she arrived in Leslie County, Kentucky — one of the most remote regions in Appalachia. The mountains were rugged, the roads nearly impassable, healthcare nonexistent. Perfect, she thought. "If the work I had in mind could be done there," she wrote, "it could be duplicated anywhere else in the United States with less effort."
That same year, she founded the Frontier Nursing Service and built Wendover as her home and headquarters. From this log house on the Middle Fork River, nurse-midwives on horseback brought prenatal care, safe childbirth, and pediatric services to thousands of families across hundreds of square miles. The results were revolutionary: maternal and infant mortality rates dropped to levels lower than many urban hospitals.
Mary worked until the day before her death at age 84 in 1965. On her deathbed, she whispered: "The glorious thing about it is that it has worked!"
Born February 17 into a distinguished southern family
Graduated from St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing in New York City
Founded the Frontier Nursing Service and built Wendover
Published her autobiography, Wide Neighborhoods
Died at age 84, working until the day before her death
Posthumously elected to American Nurses Association Hall of Fame
Mary's Words
Her wisdom, in her own voice.
"Work for children should begin before they are born, should carry them through their greatest hazard which is childbirth, and should be most intensive during their first six years of life. These are the formative years—whether for their bodies, their minds or their loving hearts."
— Mary Breckinridge
"Not only was there no reason why the Kentucky Mountains should not be chosen, but we had the best of all reasons for choosing them, namely their inaccessibility. I felt that if the work I had in mind could be done there, it could be duplicated anywhere else in the United States with less effort."
— Mary Breckinridge, on choosing Kentucky
"From the beginning, I had the wish to do the work so well and to keep such accurate records of it, that others would study it, be trained in its techniques, and then in other remotely rural parts of our own and other countries, repeat the system we used."
— Mary Breckinridge, on FNS as a model
"Wendover's long breezy dogtrot, its bathtubs, and the shade of its giant beeches were refreshing spots to anyone who had spent a summer's day in the saddle."
— Mary Breckinridge, from Wide Neighborhoods
"The glorious thing about it is that it has worked!"
— Mary Breckinridge, on her deathbed, 1965