Mrs. Lilienthal Once Wished to Be Nurse, Now She Aids Settlement’s Service

The young girl who wanted to become a nurse, but who was frustrated in her desire has grown into a woman who now devotes all her time in working for the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service. Mrs. Joseph Lilienthal smilingly explained that she is now happy in being able to fulfil some part of her early hopes in helping sick persons secure comfort by seeing that funds are on hand to aid the visiting nurses who bring relief into the homes of thousands of families throughout the city.

Sitting at her desk in the office of the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, she told of her first experience with the organization and how that experience has influenced her in her work. “When I was seventeen,” she said, “I used to have charge of a club at the Henry Street Settlement and would go to visit the homes of the children when they failed to report. “One day I happened to arrive at the same time one of the nurses did and I assisted her in helping a harassed mother with two sick children. I shall never forget the look of relief and expressions of gratitude from that mother and from that time on I promised myself to see that this work should go on.”

Mother of three children, one of whom, a son, is now studying medicine in Johns Hopkins University, Mrs. Lilienthal said that her great inspiration in this work came from Lillian D. Wald, founder of the organization. Although she has been interested in the Girl’s Service League and the Salvation Army and is on the board of directors of the Women’s Division of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, her hobby and main interest is the nursing service.

Mrs. Lilienthal is a member of the board of directors of the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service and she has in the past years organized groups of workers to secure campaign funds. Because of her success last year, she has been reappointed chairman of the committee which is arranging an Entertainment and Rally at the Guild Theatre next Sunday evening to inaugurate a drive for an emergency fund of $300,000. The collection of this fund is a tribute to Lillian D. Wald who founded the organization in 1893. The money is to be used to cover the cost of free nursing care in the homes of sick persons who are unable to pay the minimum fee. The raising of this fund is made necessary by the fact that forty-one percent of the cases visited last year were treated free of charge and if that service is to be continued more funds are to be secured.