World War I: Mary Borden – Nurse, Novelist, Poet

In 1916, Mary Borden was 30 when she found herself managing a field hospital on the Somme River in France. Casualties were pouring in from the front; the Battle of the Somme started July 1 and would continue for months. Ultimately, more than three million men were involved, with a million casualties. On the first day of battle, the British alone suffered more than 57,000 casualties.

And there was Mary Borden and her hospital staff, watching the carnage pour through their hospital doors. She found solace in writing poetry.

An American, Borden was born in 1886 in Chicago to a man who would make a fortune from silver prospecting in the American West. While she was at Vassar, her father died, leaving her a large fortune. She began to travel, met and married a British missionary in India, and then returned to London with her husband in 1913. She discovered the women’s suffrage movement and became one of its most ardent activists.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.