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When John's pa has his leg crushed riding timber down the tumbling streams to the mill, the granny woman can't help. If he loses his leg, the entire family will suffer because he won't be able to work. Luckily it's eastern Kentucky in the early years of this century, and Mary Breckinridge has arrived on horseback to help. When a mountain man's wife dies, he takes his twin babies and young daughte... More

When John's pa has his leg crushed riding timber down the tumbling streams to the mill, the granny woman can't help. If he loses his leg, the entire family will suffer because he won't be able to work. Luckily it's eastern Kentucky in the early years of this century, and Mary Breckinridge has arrived on horseback to help. When a mountain man's wife dies, he takes his twin babies and young daughter Pearl, who has stopped talking, down the mountain to the care facility that Mary Breckinridge established to provide medical services for people in 700 square-miles of wilderness. When a young nurse from Scotland seeks adventure and a chance to use her nursing skills, she applies for a job with Mary and spends most of the rest of her life on horseback, following the mountain trails to provide vaccines, medicines, and care in the Frontier Nursing Service. Here, through the skillfully told stories of three lives that were changed forever, a portrait of a courageous, self-assured, determined woman emerges. She is Mary Breckinridge, who through her pioneering Frontier Nursing Service, saved more lives than Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale put together, and who can serve as an American role model for young girls today. Rosemary Wells discovered Mary Breckinridge while traveling in Kentucky on a book tour. She has spent three years researching her subject in dusty archives and courthouses, and interviewing surviving relatives. Rosemary Wells lives in Westchester, New York.

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