United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After the yellow fever had subsided Mary Seacole sold her boarding-house, and opened a store in New Granada, where she speedily obtained popularity because of her medical skill.
Therefore, on her return, she exported guava jelly, pickles and various preserves, and being anxious to add to the variety of her wares, she visited the Bahamas, Hayti and Cuba, to inspect the productions of those places. On returning from her travels among the islands she settled down again to nurse her mother's invalid boarders, and before long married one of them, a Mr. Seacole.
Subscriptions to the fund that was started for her benefit poured in, and a sufficient sum was received to enable her to spend the regaining years of her life in comfort. The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole. Edited by W. J. S. Many years ago, when His Majesty King Edward VII. was in Canada, he paid a visit to Mrs. Laura Secord, a very old and revered Canadian lady.
Whenever a person was stricken, the demand was for 'the yellow woman from Jamaica, and it was never made in vain. When the cholera had been raging for some days, Mary Seacole despatched a messenger to bring a medical man to the place; but the Spaniard who arrived in response to the summons was horror-stricken at the terrible scenes, and incapable of rendering any assistance.
As to the society which the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is, that, judging from the specimens I have met here and elsewhere, I don't think that I shall lose much by being excluded from it. So, gentlemen, I drink to you, and the general reformation of American manners. In 1853 Mary Seacole returned to Jamaica, and before she had been there many weeks yellow fever broke out.
But her generosity to the sick and wounded had been a great strain upon her finances, as the whole of her share of the profits in the firm of Seacole and Day, and much of her capital, had been spent on her charitable work. And, to make matters worse, when the British troops had departed from the Crimea, the firm had to dispose of its stock at one-tenth of the cost price.
I calculate, gentlemen, that you're all as vexed as I am that she's not wholly white, but I do reckon on your rejoicing with me that she's so many shades removed from being entirely black; and I guess if we could bleach her by any means we would, and thus make her as acceptable in any company as she deserves to be. Gentlemen, I give you Aunty Seacole.
Proceeding to England, Seacole and Day started business at Aldershot, but after a few months the partnership was dissolved, and Mary Seacole found herself almost penniless. But as soon as her unfortunate position became known, friends hastened to assist her. Punch recorded some of her good deeds in verse, and made a humorous appeal on her behalf.
No one believed her, but the following morning a friend of the dead man was taken ill with the same disorder, and the people who had scoffed at her became terror-stricken. There was no doctor at Cruces, and Mary Seacole set herself to battle single-handed with the plague.
Lister when at home had free quarters at the house of a married niece, he used to sit about alone, and try and think of ways and means of securing capital sunk in a concern which seemed to show no signs of being wound-up. "I've got a touch of the 'art again, lad," said the elderly invalid, as they sat alone in the forecastle one night at Seacole. "You move about too much," said the cook.
Word Of The Day