Join us for a discussion of this local hero from over 100 years ago.

We’ve all become too familiar in 2020-22 with images of overworked doctors and nurses struggling to care for the unimaginable number of COVID-19 patients. Looking back a century, nurses in the World War I theatre dealt with similar circumstances. They treated victims of Spanish flu, tended to wounded soldiers, and ministered to sick and hungry children, many of whom were orphaned by the devastating war.

This was the experience of Edna Odell, who grew up in Hartsdale, New York. Edna became a nurse who worked in Westchester County and New York City, and most notably served as an American Red Cross nurse in France in 1918 and 1919. As we attempt to unravel her history through documents recently found in the Odell House—personal letters, financial records, luggage tags, passports, artifacts, photographs, and more—we begin to understand how a woman born in 1874 made the decision to set sail for France in the midst of war. It’s a story of an independent and persevering woman who came of age in a world on the precipice of change. It’s a story that could be told of women today.

Presenters will be Tessa Payer, Susan Seal and Susan Werbe.