First nurse-practitioner finally earns a place in history.

Sometimes women's worst enemies are other women. Take the case of Mary Grant Seacole, an expert but nontraditional nurse. In 1853, Florence Nightingale was asked to recruit women and create a nursing service to tend the British wounded in the Crimean War, in which British and French soldiers aided Turkey in its war against Russia between 1854 to 1856.

Seacole, a woman of color, begged to join Nightingale and was turned down. Although Seacole faced many racial, economic and social barriers, she eventually served the injured British officers, putting herself on the front lines of the war.

Some 200 years have passed since her birth, but the tale of one woman's servant leadership is worth retelling, said Bonnie McKay Harmer, an assistant professor of nursing at Saginaw Valley State University MI. She spoke at the Women in Educational Leadership conference held in Lincoln in October 2005. It is sponsored by the University of Nebraska, where she is a PhD student.

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Healing at an early age

Born in 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Scottish soldier and a free black woman, Seacole learned the art of healing from her mother. "Mary's mother was a doctress who practiced African herbal medicine and cared for invalid British soldiers and their families in her boarding house in Jamaica, which was more like a nursing home," said Harmer.

Considered a Creole, Seacole was raised by an elderly black patroness. As a teen, she assisted in her mother's work and observed how British military physicians used Western medicine to treat the soldiers and their families stationed there. Seacole took two voyages to London and made and sold West Indian spiced preserves, learning entrepreneurial skills.