Published by the Christian Science Nursing Network, Inc.

Eddy lived in an age where women were always called to nurse. If a child was sick or a relative, this was woman's work. In the years before her death, her own mother would be found caring for all of her children at one time or another. I found a letter from her sister, Martha, thanking her brother George and his wife, for nursing her through an illness. She wrote, "Never - never can I forget your kindness, which I do believe, was an important means in saving my life, for you not only 'smoothed the pillow,' but also soothed the mind, oppressed by misfortune and foreboding fears, . . . by your cheerful looks and still more cheering words."[ii] This was the type of nursing Mary was exposed to in her home.

In the beginning Eddy was the one needing the nursing assistance from her mother, siblings, Daniel Patterson, and Myra Smith, her housekeeper when she lived in North Groton. Here in her history we find her perhaps at the lowest point of her life. Who would have thought that from here she would persist and have the courage to go on to discover a healing method that would not only heal her but be replicated by others? The glimmer of light didn't come for her until her study of homeopathy showed her how powerful the mind was in a patient's recovery.

The rest, we can say, is history because her examination of homeopathy, hydropathy, mesmeric healing and other methods and their subsequent failure to cure her helped to steer her back to study the healings of Christ Jesus. Her fall on the ice was the opportunity she needed to break with material methods and, to go back to the conference theme, she was sinking in the waves at this point, certainly not walking over them. The Christ lifted her, as he did Peter, from the waves back to a place of safety.

In my mind, these early experiences of illness at home and how she was lovingly cared for by family set the tone for how Mary Baker Eddy envisioned patients under Christian Science treatment would be nursed.

Add your favorites to the following references: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p.395, lines 17-20

Ibid, p.364, lines 32-6

Ibid, p.366, lines 31-2

Ideas on good nursing pervade Eddy's writings whether you look at her early letters or those later in life. Those basic ethical bedside nursing qualities are called for to "smooth the pillow and soothe the mind."

In 1878, Mary Baker Eddy opened her own home briefly to indigent students. This Home was where her students were given board and instruction in Christian Science gratuitously.

In 1888, the first Christian Science dispensary opened where people could go for Christian Science treatment. It provided treatment for the poor and was considered a "missionary" effort, designed to help the underprivileged, as well as make more individuals aware of Christian Science. Christian Scientists in Boston were expected to support this work, which included visiting people at home.

In 1889, Mrs. Walter Watson helped with this dispensary work but could not do the visiting so she began to take patients into her home. It seems that she both nursed and treated the patients. This is Christian Science nursing in its earliest expression, where it mirrors the simplicity of Mary Baker Eddy's own experience and her statements in Science and Health - giving patients a place of shelter and expressing the same patient love that a family might in similar circumstances.[iii]

Although Eddy did not specifically open her home or dispensaries for nursing care, it's interesting how reports of home nursing begin to appear. Eventually, there were thirty dispensaries across many US cities.

We'll keep digging into the records and see if we can find any more evidence of the dispensaries' functions and their relationship with the practice and with nursing.

Daisette Stocking McKenzie's reminiscence talks of home nursing. First, she records that General Bates and his wife, who were members of the Cleveland Society, left for Chicago and opened their home to those desiring Christian Science healing. Second, she implies that she herself and Mrs. Galvin Allen, the wife of a lecturer, "rented a small house and entered upon the practice.... And we had many beautiful and wonderful results from our work. We called our little home 'Sharon'"."[iv]

In 1896, another example of this practice is found in the December issue of The Christian Science Journal, where a letter from Annie Knott to Mary Baker Eddy was published. Knott was then practicing in Detroit, and she describes the healing of a little girl through the ministrations of students in the area.[v]

In the early 1900s, another reference about nursing from Ohio is from a reminiscence of Elizabeth Kelly, who was a Journal listed Christian Science nurse for many years, from about 1916 until her passing in 1940. Her mention of nursing activity is found on p. 3 of her reminiscence, and that was in relation to her early activities in her hometown of Marion, Ohio:  "I continued my earnest study of Christian Science and took practitioners' patients into my home to care for them."[vi]

Mary Baker Eddy was aware of at least some of these instances of nursing and caring through letters written to her by her students. From an early age, her desire to help those suffering from illness and disease is well documented throughout the biographies. Her whole life was dedicated to teaching others how to heal and relieve people from sickness, disease and death.

A natural part of her caring was providing a place where care could be provided. It would appear that this part of nursing history begins with a suggestion by Eddy that Mary Beecher Longyear set up an institution where people could go to be cared for. With the history we've just gone through, this doesn't seem such a big leap, does it? Eventually, Eddy saw that new enterprises needed to be founded under the permanent structure of her church organization and therefore, as she was now delegating much of the daily activities to her Christian Science Board of Directors, the initiative belonged to them.

January 11, 1906, Eddy first brings up the idea of a nursing facility to Longyear in a letter where she writes: ". . . the want of our Cause now is a supply of beneficiaries in the line of hospitals, alias, homes for the sick where skillful surgeons, and good nurses, and Christian Science healers are ready to receive the needy.

"This is no request of mine but only a suggestion of a great need that has not yet been met namely, trained nurses, and skillful surgeons in our ranks."[vii]

January 15, 1906, Eddy elaborates on her vision for the suggested facility in a letter to Longyear: "I propose that the institution you found be called, Sanatorium. Also, that it be for teaching Surgery, training nurses, teaching cooking, and healing the sick.

"Also that it be a resort for invalids without homes or relatives available in time of need; where they can go and recruit etc. You who are so capable of financial operations can arrange all of that without my suggestions.

"Our cause demands a wider circle of means for the ends of philanthropy and charity and better qualifications for practical purposes. This latter lack in Students of C.S. is a great hindrance to our Cause and it must be met and mastered."[viii]

A few days later, January 21, 1906, Eddy writes, "Since reading your letters, pondering the subject of an institute or sanatorium, and studying our Manual, I see it is not best for you to take the initiative in this matter. It properly belongs to the Christian Science Board of Directors to do that, for thereby we shall avoid much confusion in the future. So please drop the matter."[ix]

In December 1907, the establishment of an institution was still on her mind as she set up a Deed of Trust and proposed founding an institution "for the special benefit of the poor and the general good of all mankind."[x] Archibald McClellan, who was appointed a trustee of this institution, wrote in a Sentinel editorial, "Among those to be taught and supported thus will be some persons who are trained and qualified nurses and genuinely interested in Christian Science."[xi] He also commented that it was to be called the "Mary Baker G. Eddy's Charitable Fund." She endowed it with $1 million dollars.[xii] The Boston Herald commented on this, noting: "The Christian Science sect has been severely criticized for its omission to carry on relief and charitable work under institutional auspices."[xiii]

Nineteen months went by while Mary Baker Eddy moved to Boston and founded The Christian Science Monitor and nothing further came from this proposal.

January 26, 1908, Eddy left her beloved Pleasant View for Boston. At 86, her workload was far less than it had been in previous years although she was still keen and alert. The "Next Friends" suit was over but its effects were noticeable in the fact that she was not in vigorous health. As Irving Tomlinson puts it, "her three years at Chestnut Hill began a new era in her experience. . . . her pronounced work was the founding of The Christian Science Monitor and elimination from the Movement of an obstructionist who was a teacher of Christian Science (Augusta Stetson). These two stupendous undertakings were of such importance to the Cause that the accomplishment of these alone is sufficient to testify to the virility of her thought and her capacity for expediting work at that time." But he also says, "At night she felt the need of having a companion and nursing care."[xiv]

The By Law for the Christian Science nurse is the next step in this history of nursing and appears in the Manual in November 1908.[xv] The qualifications are stated but no method of how to train is written in her letters at this time. The institution was not proving to be an easy way forward, but the need for care, love, the expression of nursing, as a part of Christian Science practice was being called for. I can only imagine this was of prime importance to her because of her own personal situation.

Mary Baker Eddy was busy considering the future of the Christian Science movement and organizing her church so it would last without her personal presence. The By Law for the nurse is an inevitable next step in her establishment of the healing practice, part of her Church organization as recorded in the Church Manual. It's there for all time. Those of us fortunate to be Christian Science nurses can witness to the spiritual essence of Christian Science nursing and its relation to the Divine. True nursing as established in the Manual is then inseparable from the revelation of Christian Science.

The archives show through this period other instances of members asking about converting their homes into a Sanatorium and of their nursing experiences in regard to patients.

In February 1909,the first five Christian Science nurse cards appear in the Journal and in a year this rises to 48.

In June 1909, the clerk of The Mother Church responds to a question about a nursing handbook saying that the publication of such a book for Christian Sciences nurses is not encouraged.

In July 1909, Eddy sends the following message to the Christian Science Board of Directors: Please vote on the adoption of the following by-law, and if adopted publish it in our periodicals and in the Church Manual.

BY-LAW

The Mother Church shall establish and maintain a Christian Science resort for the so-called sick. [xvi]

According to the Board minutes, the By Law was adopted on August 2, 1909 but it appears that before it was seen in the periodicals, the Board began to reflect on it.

August 5, 1909, the Board spells out their concerns in a letter to Eddy:

1. How to establish and maintain a resort for the sick without coming under supervision of medical authorities for city and state.
2. How to decide on cases for admissions especially with reference to so-called communicable diseases.
3. People suffering with chronic troubles - tendency to come to Boston. With a resort this trend would rapidly increase.
4. Therefore an institution to meet the needs would have to be large and very expensive (the church could not engage in a business where charges were made for care and treatment). Such an institution would absorb the church's entire income. We don't see how to finance it."[xvii]

On August 11, 1909, Adam Dickey writes on behalf of Eddy: ". . . if The Mother Church is not ready to establish and maintain a Christian Science resort for the sick, she (Mrs. Eddy) is willing to let this matter rest for the present, and suggest that you vote on the repeal of the By-law providing for the same."[xviii] The By Law is at once repealed.

It's noted in various places on date lists, that concern about the standard of advertisers and the lack of Christian Science nurses was brought up at various times from 1910 onward but it wasn't until November 1915 that a notation was placed in the Director's records: Dickey/Neal to develop a plan to train nurses to serve in cases under Christian Science treatment.[xix]

On October 7, 1916, the announcement was placed in the Sentinel that The Christian Science Benevolent Association had just been formed. It published much of the early correspondence between Eddy and Longyear and then ends with telling the Field that a large piece of land had been given to the Directors in Brookline for the purpose of setting up the Benevolent Association, which was to be "established and conducted by The Mother Church."[xx]

A December 2, 1916, Sentinel editorial states that healing is clearly the goal with this new venture. It says, " . . . we call upon the field for renewed consecration to the work of healing the sick, saving the sinner, and comforting the afflicted . . . and every Christian Scientist must . . . make this healing instantaneous and permanent. No Christian Scientist is exempt from this demand."[xxi]

In 1919, The Christian Science Benevolent Association opened its doors to Rest and Study guests and the next year to nursing patients when sufficient former medical nurses were employed along with student nurses who trained on a one-to-one basis on the nursing floor. It wasn't until the following year that training was set up for students on a regular basis.

Over the next few years, articles by Christian Science nurses began to appear in the periodicals and the trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society and the Board of Directors received many letters about nurses, nursing practice and nurses training. Minimal responses were sent directing the correspondents back to the Manual By Law.

In 1926, a committee was formed at the request of the Christian Science Benevolent Association to investigate the Association's nursing department and recommend needed changes, one of which was to suggest a curriculum for Christian Science nurses training.

In 1929, with the Directors' approval, a three-year training program was established at the Benevolent Association in Boston.

And that's where I have to end our history today. There is so much more to research before we can give a clear picture of what happened next. The one big question that many people ask is: Did Eddy really want Christian Science nursing facilities established? I've tried to show in this talk a little of her pragmatism and how early students responded to the needs of the day, which I believe speaks to her desire for a refuge.

It is clear to me that the provision for the Christian Science nurse is part of Mary Baker Eddy's revelation for her Church organization; the By Law has relevance as a part of the history of the Church, a part of the record of Eddy's care for those in need of aid. In the almost 100 years since the Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association opened, many Christian Science nursing organizations have been established across the US, UK and in other parts of the world as a means for the Christian Science nurse By Law to be demonstrated.

And finally, I want to give a plug for The Mary Baker Eddy Library and its value as a research facility. A history needs to be written and the organizational records of The Mother Church can be researched there. There is much material to review concerning the history of Christian Science nursing and nursing organizations that gives us the facts of those events, as well as their context and clarification. There is much to show how the years have lifted the concept of nursing and moved it closer to its origins in the Church Manual.

The Library is available 24/7. Check out our Web site at www.mbelibrary.org

• Check out the Library book catalog online for nursing context - Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, history of American nursing - you can ask for an Inter Library loan if the books are unobtainable in your own public library.
• Research when you visit Boston or email your questions to research@mbelibrary.org