During the First World War, more than eighteen thousand Red Cross nurses served with the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. Elizabeth Ashe was one of them and was Chief Nurse of Children's Bureau Department of Civil Affairs American Red Cross. She found her team overwhelmed with babies and orphan children who were injured, sick, and ill-cared-for. But they rose to the occasion. Ashe also spent time caring for wounded soldiers and saw first-hand the horrors of the Great War. She saw and heard the bombing and became inured to it. Since this book was published prior to the end of the war, Ashe may have hoped it would foster more support for the Red Cross efforts. The terse, vivid sentences of the letters create a picture of the scenes of suffering and the opportunities for service as they present themselves to the writer. Written under the stress of work and to those closest in her confidence, they bear the imprint of her character.
