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'The CAT Lady with the Lamp': Letter from Florence Nightingale reveals how nurse who kept 60 felines throughout her life searched for a home for a 'very handsome Persian' called Mr Bismarck before adopting him herself
UK Daily Mail ^ | March 25, 2021 | Harry Howard

Posted on 03/25/2021 6:37:09 AM PDT by C19fan

A quirky letter by British nursing heroine Florence Nightingale about her little-mentioned love of cats has emerged for sale 144 years later.

Nightingale, who became known as 'Lady with the Lamp' following her service as a nurse during the Crimean War, owned 60 felines throughout her life.

At one point, she owned as many as 17 at once.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: cats; victorian
She never married although she did enjoy the company of men more than women. She did have a pet owl she rescued as a chick. Seems like an appropriate pet for such an amazing woman as Athena incarnate.
1 posted on 03/25/2021 6:37:09 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

No doubt this woman did a bit of publicized good in her life, but cat ladies are overall very weird people. Anyone really surprised that she never married or bore children?


2 posted on 03/25/2021 6:46:13 AM PDT by allendale
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To: C19fan

the original Cat Lady


3 posted on 03/25/2021 6:49:07 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (Neither safety nor security exists in nature. Everything is dangerous and has risk.)
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To: C19fan

Amazing. Great story although I hate reading stories like this because it reminds me of all the stuff from the 1800s I use to have. My Grandma got divorced in the 1960s and she married this guy whose entire family and ancestors were pack rats, it was something genetic where they would save everything, letters, coins, newspapers from the late 1700s to the late 1800s and when he died he willed me some of that stuff and one year I moved and I don’t know what happened, I lost all of it. I even had election buttons/medalions from the Lincoln/Douglas debate, buttons to vote for Lincoln, just incredible stuff. The best though was this huge collection of amateur poetry written by endless people that someone must have collected through the years, just a huge stack of it. A lot of it written in pencil, and they would write the day and year when they wrote it and I lot of it was REALLY old “1840” “1820” it was incredible and i LOST IT! All those poems forever gone.


4 posted on 03/25/2021 6:50:03 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (As long as Hillary Clinton remains free equal justice under the law will never exist in the USA)
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To: allendale

The cat’s were controlling her mind.....................It’s what they do.................


5 posted on 03/25/2021 7:01:04 AM PDT by Red Badger ("We've always been at war with Climate Change, Winston."..............................)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

That would have been an incredible find, for it all.

How did you lose the poems?


6 posted on 03/25/2021 7:01:12 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: allendale

I know a couple cat ladies. One is a relative.

I think it is their maternal instincts gone awry, in the absence of a decent guy. For at least two, they had very bad encounters with a man or men in the past, and caring for the cats calms them and makes them feel loved.

I would suggest dogs could do the same, and actually protect you, but I think the ladies see themselves in the independent cats, as opposed to loyal dogs.


7 posted on 03/25/2021 7:05:36 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: allendale

Oh, and one of these cat ladies is a nurse...


8 posted on 03/25/2021 7:06:03 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: ConservativeMind

When I moved I must have left it behind, it really sucks


9 posted on 03/25/2021 7:42:48 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (As long as Hillary Clinton remains free equal justice under the law will never exist in the USA)
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To: allendale

“No doubt this woman did a bit of publicized good in her life”

a bit?

How generous of you.


10 posted on 03/25/2021 9:00:14 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

There was a strange old lady who kept forty cats inside her Birmingham, Alabama home many many years ago. One faithful morning she had a real smoky house fire. Thick, black(if I may borrow the term black) deadly smoke was all the way to the floor of her residence when we, the fire department arrived. There wasn’t much fire damage to the residence but the smoke did what smoke does in house fires. Behind every interior door of the home there were four legged smoke victims cluttering the floor and partially blocking the doorways barely visible through the smoke. After searching the home and opening windows to clear all the smoke, I walked outside to find my sometimes insensitive firefighters stacking two or three dozen dead cats just as if stacking firewood. Caught aback I emphatically admonished my eager heroes and propounded that their stacking gesture might be misconstrued by certain audiences therefore a quick thoughtful requite action was demanded immediately. In defense of our department’s proud public image, my brave crew obliged my lamentations, preventing loud official verbal admonishments by our superiors(the Chief)and something burning on the stove back at the firehouse.


11 posted on 03/25/2021 12:04:37 PM PDT by Colt1851Navy (What was wrong with Nixon?)
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To: Colt1851Navy

Black smoke all the way down to the floor.


12 posted on 03/25/2021 12:10:59 PM PDT by linMcHlp
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