Right There Where It All Began

by Eris Perese

A nurse delivered me in a farmhouse in Jericho, Vermont. Nurses have guided me in life ever since. My mother, who was also a nurse, was very ill in my childhood, and the visiting nurses cared for her. They looked after the entire family, especially the children. I thought of them as powerful people who could keep the whole family on track and make them feel better.

As I grew up, I became close to Bunny Grady, a nurse who lived next door. When she asked me what I was going to do after graduation, I said I would go to New York City to get a job as a cub reporter. Bunny came back with an application and said, "There's a new university school of nursing. I think you should go." I said, "I don't know. It's not New York City," and she replied, "Albany is close enough." I bought a one-way bus ticket to enter nursing.

After I completed my B.S. degree at UB, Professor Cathleen Getty urged me to enroll in the master's program in psychiatric nursing. After completing the program, I now teach at UB. Along the way, my husband and I wrote a book together about life in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans during a previous period of great suffering. While I was researching the book, I went to the Florence Nightingale museum in Uskudar, Turkey. Nursing started in Turkey during the Crimean war, thanks to Florence Nightingale. She was a great organizer, a statistician, an expert in outcome research, and an outstanding advocate. After the war, she returned to England and used the knowledge that she gained to create the scientific basis for nursing as we know it today. She was quite a lady!

I went to Florence Nightingale's offices in Turkey and looked out the window, where Asia meets Europe and where ships were bringing wounded soldiers in from many nations. It was moving to stand right there where it all began. It fueled my desire to start the Nightingale Fund, in order to provide funds for the dean to use in any way she wishes to benefit nursing. I hope that people will give to the fund in memory of other nurses who helped them.