FROM THE HEART WITH GINI RIFKIN: Mary Seacole, also known as Mother Seacole and the Black Florence Nightingale.

Wednesday, August 26, 2026

Mary Seacole, also known as Mother Seacole and the Black Florence Nightingale.

(1805-1881) Mary was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Scottish military father and a free Black Jamaican mother. Her mother was a renowned healer known as "The Doctress," who passed down traditional Caribbean and African herbal medicine practices.

Mrs. Seacole established her reputation as a healer during a yellow fever outbreak in 1853, and, when, the Crimean War broke out later that year, she wished to do her share to aid the wounded. Traveling all the way to London, she applied to the British Secretary at War and one of Nightingale’s colleagues to be included in the country's nursing corps.

They turned her down!

Here is a quote from her 1857 autobiography, THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE IN MANY LANDS: “Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin than theirs?”

Undaunted, she independently funded her way to the Crimean War to care for wounded soldiers on the front lines.

Near Balaclava, she established the "British Hotel," which served as a store, restaurant, and safe resting place for officers and enlisted men. In my book Lady Gallant, when my heroine Nurse Josephine Posey is injured and lost, Mary Seacole rescues her too.

Mother Seacole was known for bravely riding out to the active battlefields with medical supplies and food, tending to wounded and dying soldiers under cannon fire. The soldiers affectionately called her "Mother Seacole"

Post-war found her bankrupt, but she published her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, the first memoir by a Black woman in Britain.

Today, Seacole's legacy is celebrated with a statue outside St. Thomas' Hospital in London—believed to be the first monument to a named Black woman in the UK.

My story Lady Gallant has a lot of history sprinkled in, and Mrs. Seacole has a cameo, but there is also intrigue, and of course Romance!

Smack in the middle of the Crimean war, Josephine Posey, a Florence Nightingale nurse, meets Garrick Allen, the Times first war correspondent. With intrigue afoot and bombs bursting in air, they share the secrets of their past and dream of a future together.

Blurb: Disowned by her father and still mourning the death of her fiancé, Josephine Posey joins Florence Nightingale’s brigade of nurses bound for the Black Sea. Thousands of British soldiers desperately await these angels of mercy and a new life awaits Josie. Amidst the chaos of death and despair, she finds a spark of hope, lighting the flame once more inside her soul.

In search of the truth, Garrick Allen, one of Britain’s first war correspondents also journeys to the Crimean Peninsula. To him the soldiers seem all but abandoned by Queen and country, and as he smokes his cheroots and makes friends with a bottle, he writes his bold but honest dispatches for The Times. Not wanting anything more than to finish his job and go home, Garrick is blind-sided by a nurse with attitude who offers him a new slant on life and a reason to love.