Florence Nightingale was born in a rich family. When she was young, she took lessons in music and drawing, and read great books. She also travelled a great deal with her mother and father. As a child, she felt that visiting sick people was both a duty and a pleasure. She enjoyed helping them. At last her mind was made up: “I'm going to be a nurse,” she decided. “Nursing isn't the right work for a lady,” her father told her. “Then I'll make it so,” she smiled. And she went to learn nursing in Germany and France. When she returned to England, she started a nursing home for women. During the Crimean War in 1854 she went with a group of 38 nurses to the front hospitals. What they saw there was terrible. The officer there didn't want any woman to tell him how to run a hospital, but the nurses went to work. Florence used her own money to buy clothes, beds, medicines and food for the men. Her only pay was in smiles from the lips of dying soldiers. After war she returned to England and was honored for her services by Queen Victoria. But Florence said that her work had just begun. She raised money to build the Nightingale Home for Nurses in London. She also wrote a book on public health, which was printed in several countries. She worked as a nurse till her death at the age of ninety.