Why Mary Keller?
As the departure date approached, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle included profiles of several Brooklyn-based nurses who would be sailing to Serbia.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 4, 1914
Why would the Red Cross not want to take such a person along? She had enough initiative to have acquired better than average training, which included surgical experience, and she had become Superintendent of a downtown Brooklyn hospital before she turned 30. She would be comfortable making decisions and shouldering responsibility – being Superintendent for the night shift had made her the senior person on duty at St. Mary’s.
Architect's rendering of St. Mary’s Hospital, Brooklyn, NY 1910
Keller’s abilities may have been known beforehand to project leader Mary Gladwin. In-between the latter’s various Red Cross assignments abroad (Tokyo, Philippines, UK, Europe), Gladwin had held a number of prominent positions in the American medical community. Most recently, she had been Supervisor of Manhattan’s Woman’s Hospital. Perhaps she and Keller had connected through inter-hospital committee work in New York City.
Postcard of Woman's Hospital, New York, NY, published by Albertype Company c.1906
