Gena K. Gorrell - Heart and Soul. The Story of Florence Nightingale

Let children that would fear the Lord

Hear what their teachers say:

With reverence hear their parents word,

And with delight obey.

Have you not heard what dreadful plagues

Are threatend by the Lord,

To him that breaks his fathers laws,

Or mocks his mothers word?

What heavy guilt upon him lies!

How cursed is his name!

The ravens shall pick out his eyes,

And eagles eat the same.

Divine and Moral Songs for Children, circa 1715

N MAY 12, IN THE YEAR 1820, A BABY GIRL WAS BORN IN THE Italian city of Firenze. Her parents were not Italian; they were a young English couple, William and Fanny Nightingale. The pair already had a one-year-old daughter, born in the Italian city of Naples and called Parthenope (Par-THEN-oh-pee, from the Greek for maidenly or pure), after an ancient Greek colony at that site. The Nightingales decided that their new baby should have an equally unusual name. She too would be called after her birthplace.

In English, Firenze is called Florence.

William Nightingale was twenty-five years old when Florence was born. He was a tall, thin young man, intelligent, thoughtful, and bookish. He was the son of a successful banker, and he could have achieved a great deal himself But the young man was indolent by nature and, since he had inherited a fortune from an uncle, he had no need to apply his talents. His marriage to Fanny Smith, a lively, strong-willed woman six years his senior, only increased his laziness.

Fanny came from a family known for its wealth and good deeds. Her grandfather Samuel Smith had made a lot of money in the grocery business, and he was a strong supporter of good causes. As a Member of Parliament, her father, William Smith, had fought against slavery and the oppression of the poor. Like her relatives, Fanny was energetic and opinionated. One of ten children, she had grown up in a whirl of picnics and parties, dances, and amateur theatricals; she loved comfort and good company.

The couple had set out on their tour of Europe two years earlier, just after their wedding. Napoleon and his armies had finally been defeated in 1815, after more than twenty years of European war, and Britains rich families were flocking back to the Continent. They traveled in horse-drawn coaches, accompanied by valets, grooms, uniformed footmen, cooks, maids, and nannies, and cartloads of baggage. They stayed in luxury hotels or rented spacious villas; they toured museums, palaces, and cathedrals; they nibbled at elegant luncheons and ate their way through ten-course dinners. They exhausted themselves sightseeing, shopping, and dancing at gala balls, and restored themselves in the natural hot springs of spas or at fashionable seaside resorts.

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In 1821, when Florence was one year old, her parents decided to go back to England. William would happily have stayed in Italy, reading and visiting and doing nothing in particular, but Fanny was ambitious. She wanted to live in a fine home, entertain important people, and be a grand lady. Williams inheritance included some land, with a lead mine and smelter, in the county of Derbyshire. (Lead was smelted, or melted and purified, and used to make such products as ammunition, plumbing pipes, and pewter dishes.) He designed a handsome new house for his family a mansion with fifteen bedrooms, and a beautiful garden of stone terraces, and a wonderful view of a river and they named it Lea Hurst. (A lea is a meadow, and a hurst is a low hill.) There they settled down to raise their two daughters, in the heart of England.