Forgotten Woman

Some have statues, others are footnotes in history books and there are those who have been forgotten completely. Women of great courage and high achievement have all too often fallen through the trapdoor of history, remembered by their families and descendants but few others.

Admiral Nelson’s mistress Emma Hamilton has her own niche in history but what do we know of his wife, Frances “Fanny” Nelson? When her husband returned to England, ill and in agony having lost much of his arm in battle it was Fanny who nursed him back to health. She may well have saved his life and given us victory at Trafalgar in 1805. Her reward was to be deserted by Nelson in the final years of their married life. She gets a passing mention in most biographies of her famous husband.

Much the same might be said about General Eisenhower’s wartime driver, assistant, and, finally, lover Kay Summersby. She played a vital but now forgotten role in lifting her boss from black moods of depression and keeping him sane when he buckled under the pressures of high command.

Eisenhower loved her. There is no other way to describe their relationship. She was at his side throughout the war and there is strong evidence that he wanted to marry her at the end of the conflict. In the event ambition trumped love. He deserted the woman who had given him so much. Worse still Kay Summersby was then dumped from history.

A famous photograph of the two taken at the moment of the formal German surrender in April 1945 was doctored to remove her. Eisenhower gave her one miserly mention in his memoir. Successive historians described her account of the relationship as fantasy. Only recently has that judgment been reversed and Summersby can be seen for what she was: the women who in the words of senior American general “helped Ike win the war.”

Two other women come to my mind. Both were hailed as heroes on their deaths and have been memorialised in various ways since. But both are slipping from public remembrance.

Wearing her nurse’s uniform Edith Cavell looks across Trafalgar Square at Admiral Nelson on his column. Sculpted in marble she stands 10 feet high on a stone plinth. Behind a huge block of granite rises 40 feet to a cross and a carving of Madonna with child.

Engraved below the statue are Cavell’s last words before being executed by a German firing squad at dawn in Brussels on October 12, 1915. “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone”.

Amid universal condemnation Cavell, who had helped Allied soldiers escape from Belgium, was blindfolded, bound, and shot after a brief and blatantly biased trial. The fact that she was a civilian who had cared equally for German, as well as allied soldiers, made no difference. No German officer or official was held responsible for what was clearly a war crime.

There are other statues to Cavell, in Norwich near where she grew up, and in Brussels. There is an annual service by society to preserve her memory.

But in the anniversary coverage of the great battles and events of the First World War, I cannot find her name. Histories of the war rarely grant her more than a footnote. Tourists who give passing glances at her statue have no idea of Cavell’s long history of humanitarian service to the poor and the suffering before she was caught in the coils of war.

Then there is Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian and first woman to join the American space program. She was a 37-year-old high school teacher and mother of two from Concord, New Hampshire, and had been chosen from 1,100 applicants to join the crew of the Challenger Shuttle.

She did so because: “To connect my abilities as an educator with my interest in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies.”
The Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral on January 28th, 1986. McAuliffe‘s husband Steven, son Scott aged 9, and daughter Caroline, 7 were watching as were schoolchildren across the country and indeed the whole nation. The plan to send a teacher into space had caught the public imagination.

McAuliffe had sacrificed much time with her family to spend months training for this day. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off the shuttle exploded leaving two long horn-like trails of smoke and vapor over Florida. All seven crew on the shuttle were killed.

Today there are over 40 schools in the US named after Christa McAuliffe. Medals, testimonies from politicians, and moving words from President Reagan followed her death as they did for all the crew.

But the mourning for McCauliffe was special. She was different. She had been a civilian, a teacher, and a mother who had stepped away from that ordered, loving life to pursue a dream. She wanted to look down from space and tell her children and those she taught of the new world that awaited them.

I just wonder if Christa McAuliffe’s vision and determination and Edith Cavell’s courage and humanity mean as much today as they should do and are as well remembered as they should be.

The new compelling historical novel from James MacManus is out now – buy your copy of Ike and Kay here.