Mary Breckinridge was born on February 17 in Memphis, Tennessee, graduated from St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing in New York City, married and lived in Arkansas, and endured the deaths of her daughter Polly shortly after birth and her son Breckie at age four. She worked in France with the American Committee for Devastated France, where she studied the work of nurse-midwives in addressing health issues facing mothers and babies, then traveled on horseback through the mountains of southeastern Kentucky surveying families on healthcare needs. After graduating as a nurse-midwife from British Hospital for Mothers and Babies in London, England, she founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies to provide professional healthcare to eastern Kentucky. With a staff of six nurse-midwives trained in England and Scotland, she established the first clinic in Hyden, and the organization was later renamed Frontier Nursing Service. Hyden Hospital, the first hospital in Leslie County, was completed and dedicated, and she established the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, the first school in the United States to certify nurse-midwives. She died on May 16 at Wendover. Mary Breckinridge Hospital was later completed and dedicated, and she was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame.