Florence Nightingale's Vision letter - page 9

This is an excerpt from the description of the vision that Florence Nightingale received from God when she was sixteen years old. She had the vision at her home, Embley Park.

On February 7th 1837 Nightingale received her ‘call to service’ to do a work for God. The voice didn’t say what form the service would take, but it was from this point that Nightingale started to persue nursing with a greater conviction. She wrote to her cousin Marianne Nicholson as soon as it happened.

Traditionally the story is that she had the vision sat on her seat in the garden under the cedars of Lebanon trees, but later she revealed to family it happened in her bedroom.

Nightingale lived and died serving the people she loved especially the soldiers of Balaclava and the Crimea, who she called her children.

The letter is owned by William Copeland, Great great nephew of Marianne Nicholson and is on loan to Lotherton Hall.