Service
Ethel's indomitable spirit in the face of tragedy has been chronicled, along with a number of triumphs.
During World War I, Ethel, now a nurse served in France in the same hospital as her husband served as a surgeon. Later, she became involved with the Red Cross, and served as Nassau County Chairman during World War II, and then as Chairman of the Nassau County Nursing Service. Her long involvement, even while traveling, is shown by her correspondence still residing in the Nassau County Red Cross archives. When the Red Cross recently brought her Fifty Year Service Pin to Sagamore Hill, they had to correct themselves—it was not fifty years of service, it was sixty. When it came time to have her portrait painted, she did not choose to wear an evening gown and jewels, she wore her Red Cross uniform.
She put in many years of work to turn Sagamore Hill into a National Historic Site.
Ethel was one of the first two women to serve on the Board of Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History.
Read more about this topic: Ethel Roosevelt Derby
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“The Service without Hope
Is tenderest, I think—
...
There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until—”
—Emily Dickinson (1831–1886)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community,—these are the most vital things education must try to produce.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)