Florence Wald, after graduating from Mt. Holyoke College and receiving her nursing degree from Yale University in 1941, devoted her life to caring for others.
During the Second World War, Wald served in the Signal Corps. After the war, she taught nursing at Yale and eventually became Dean of Yale’s prestigious School of Nursing. Her most lasting impact was her work in bringing the hospice movement to the United States from Europe. Learning of the hospice movement, Wald went to Europe, studied the movement, and then, in 1971, returned to the United States to establish the first hospice unit in this country. Since then, the movement has spread rapidly because of the great need it fulfills. Hospice, now a household name, has made it possible for tens of thousands to die at home surrounded by loved ones and friends.
Not satisfied with these achievements, Wald continued to work to ensure that hospice services were available to all. In her eighties, Wald worked on making hospice available in prisons, noting the humanitarian act not only aided the dying but also helped rehabilitate the incarcerated. The “Mother of the American Hospice Movement” received an honorary doctorate from Yale University.
