“I was twice in training there myself. Of course, since then hospital and district nursing have made great strides. Indeed, district nursing has been invented.
“But never have I met with a higher love, a purer devotion than there. There was no neglect.
“It was the more remarkable because many of the deaconesses had been only peasants—(none were gentlewomen when I was there).
“The food was poor—no coffee but bean coffee—no luxury but cleanliness.
“Florence Nightingale.”
One can imagine the flutter of excitement amongst the good simple deaconesses as they flitted about in their blue cotton gowns, white aprons, and prim muslin caps when it was known that an English lady of wealth and position had come to study amongst them. That such a woman should voluntarily undertake the duties of a hospital nurse, tending the sick poor with her own delicate hands, was at that time almost unprecedented. But the “Fraulein Nightingale” was quickly at home amongst her fellow-nurses and eager to learn all that the more experienced could teach her. She took both day and night nursing and entered into all branches of work. Garbed in the simple nurse’s dress she moved through the wards of the hospital carrying the charm of her presence from bed to bed, as she was later to do at Scutari. Was there a difficult case to attend or an operation to be performed, the English Fraulein was sure to be on the scene.
At this period Miss Nightingale was in the strength and beauty of her early womanhood. She was tall, slight, and graceful, with abundance of brown hair neatly arranged on either side her high broad forehead, and had penetrating grey-blue eyes and a mouth which though firm indicated a sense of humour. The deaconesses, with whom she could talk in their own language, found her a diverting companion, for she had a sharp incisive wit, a certain homely shrewdness of expression, and a knowledge acquired not only from a superior education, but from a good experience of foreign travel. Above everything else she was distinguished by the power of adapting herself to circumstances, and she settled down to the humble fare and simple routine of life at Kaiserswerth as easily as though she had never known the refined luxuries of her father’s house. It is small wonder that the sweet old faces of the retired deaconesses, living out the last spell of life in the Kaiserswerth Home of Rest, light up with smiles to-day at the mention of the “Fraulein Nightingale.” Some can recall her gracious kindly presence amongst them, and all feel a community of satisfaction that her honoured name is enrolled among the sisterhood.
Sister Agnes Jones, the devoted and famous nurse of Liverpool, was at Kaiserswerth in 1860, and records the impression which Miss Nightingale’s personality had left on the deaconesses. She wrote in a letter to a friend: “Their love for Miss Nightingale is so great; she was only a few months there, but they so long to see her again. I was asking much about her; such a loving and lovely womanly character hers must be, and so religious. Sister S. told me many of the sick remembered much of her teaching, and some died happily, blessing her for having led them to Jesus.”
Although training in hospital work was Miss Nightingale’s primary object in going to Kaiserswerth, she was deeply interested in all Pastor Fliedner’s schemes for helping the poor in his parish, and did a good deal of what in these days would be termed “district visiting,” along with Frau Fliedner. She also took a keen interest in the school and the teachers’ seminary, and formed a warm friendship with Henrietta Frickenhaus, the first schoolmistress at Kaiserswerth, who was still in charge of the seminary, and had at that time trained four hundred candidates.
Pastor Fliedner had given up parish work to travel abroad and found deaconess institutions in various towns at the time when Miss Nightingale first came to Kaiserswerth, but they occasionally met, and during the latter part of her residence he was at home and took, as may be readily imagined, a deep interest in the training of so brilliant and distinguished a pupil. Mr. Sidney Herbert visited Kaiserswerth during Miss Nightingale’s probation, and had therefore an opportunity of seeing the efficient training of the lady who was later to be his honoured coadjutor in hospital and nursing reforms.