Mary Gladwin was a nurse in three wars. There was very little she did not see. Mary once remarked, "I have seen it all. If the fathers and mothers could have seen what I have seen on the bloody battlefields, there never would be another war. Mary was born in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire. She was the oldest of seven children of Francis and Sarah Gladwin. In 1868 the family came to America and settled in Akron, Ohio and Mary grew up at 268 E. Voris Street. She attended Jennings school off of East Mill Street in downtown Akron. Mary earned a scholarship and studied education at Buchtel College, (later to become Akron University). She graduated in 1887. She became a teacher and taught high school science in Norwalk for six years. She came to a point where she did not enjoy teaching. She became tired and listless. When she went to her doctor, he told her, "Get your head out of that book or you'll die." Mary thought that nursing was the answer. She applied to Boston City Hospital. Nine months into her studies, the Spanish-American War began in 1898. The American Red Cross was recruiting volenteers. Mary would soon be nursing typhoid soldiers as chief nurse in Georgia. Then she went to Cuba, then Puerto Rico and then to the Philippines to help with wounded soldiers. In Manila, she was in charge of Red Cross supplies and for her service she was awarded the Spanish-American War medal. Mary came back to Boston to finish her nursing degree in 1904. But the Russo-Japanese War erupted and the Red Cross sent her to Hiroshima where she assisted Japanese nurses. Afterward she was presented with the Imperial Order of the Crown that was awarded to her personally by Japanese Emperor Meiji. She also received a medal made of sharpnel from the battlefield. Returning to Akron, Mary served as Red Cross nurse at B.F. Goodrich Co., and helped victims of the 1913 Ohio flood. At the beginning of World War I, Mary went to Serbia to organize relief efforts and attended to thousands of wounded soldiers at the hospital in Belgrade. Twice the hospital was captured by Austrians, and then re-captured by the Serbs. For over a year the city was shelled. Mary went through a living hell at the hospital falling asleep each night within the sounds of soldiers crying out in pain and ripping at their bandages. For her service, Mary was awarded with the Serbian Cross of Charity medal by Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia. Returning to Akron once again, Mary helped organize the Summit County chapter of the American Red Cross and also the Visiting Nurses' Association. In 1920, Mary was one of the first nurses to receive the International Red Cross' "Florence Nightingale Medal", the most prestigious award she would get. She kept all of her medals and awards in their cases in a drawer at her home. But she always wore the pin that she was the most proud of...her small Red Cross pin. Mary never got married or had children. She received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Akron University, served as a hospital administrator in New York and Minnesota, then went on a national lecture circuit and endded up writing two books: "Ethics for Nurses", (1930) and "The Red Cross and Jane Armindo Delano", (1931). In 1939 Mary entered Akron City Hospital for a much needed rest. But her heart had become weakened and Mary died in her sleep at age 77. Mary's funeral was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church and was attended by hundreds of nurses, civic leaders and Red Cross members. In 1979, Akron U dedicated Mary Gladwin Hall as it's new College of Nursing. Her diary, photos and writings are in the Akron U Archival Services Department. Her medals were donated to the Summit County Historical Society. About war, Gladwin said, "Nobody who has seen as much as I have could feel otherwise about it. I hope that there will not be any more. They get worse and worse as time goes on." A year after Mary's death, World War II began. I guess no one was listening.

Obit taken in part from a story in the Akron Beacon Journal written by Mark Price.