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End of Life Resource

Biographies of Florence Wald and Catherine Kennedy

The impulse to care for others has been present in man for as long as we have record and undoubtedly long before that. In rare individuals this impulse transcends personal circumstance. It becomes conviction and even a need driving their lives to provide for others outside their own circles of family and friends. The Kennedy-Wald Collection, which is part of the end-of-life resource center at Yale, is named for two women who themselves provided such care and in doing so have inspired others.

Florence Schorske Wald

In 1968, Florence Schorske Wald left her position as Dean of the Yale University Nursing School and joined the team of health care professionals that founded the first hospice in this country. In preparation for that undertaking, she worked with dying patients and their families in Yale-New Haven Hospital and with Cicely Saunders at St. Christopher's Hospice outside London. During this time she learned about the integrated work of nursing, medicine, social work, pastoral care, the arts and volunteers in providing total care for the terminally ill. When the interdisciplinary team at the Connecticut Hospice accepted its first patients in 1974, much of the care received rested on the work of Florence Wald and her colleagues. She has continued her work in subsequent years developing the concept of hospice in this country. For the last several years she has worked with other colleagues to develop hospice programs for the incarcerated and their families. The donation of her professional library to the Yale Medical Library forms the nidus for the collection we open today. Mrs. Wald has received many honors, but most important to those who have worked with her are not her awards but the learning readily shared, the encompassing humanity, the compassion and support she offers to all around her.

Catherine Urwin Kennedy

Catherine Urwin Kennedy moved with her family from England to New Haven in 1983. Three years later she graduated from Yale's School of Management. Beginning in 1987 she began a work of eight years to found an AIDS nursing home in her new community. This enterprise involved her in developing interest, raising funds and overcoming ignorance, prejudice and inertia. Finally through admiration of her goals and her hard work she won the approval of then Governor Weicker and the legislature for special funding for what is now Leeway. Mrs. Kennedy and her staff welcomed the first AIDS patients at Leeway in 1995. There the patients receive nursing, medical, spiritual and social support, recreation and assistance with daily living as well as support to their families. Many return to live again in their communities. During her lifetime Mrs. Kennedy received much deserved recognition from institutions and from individuals. On a less public level Leeway's patients, and we as their fellow citizens, owe Catherine Kennedy daily tribute for her broad social vision, her stubborn inventiveness at all stages of founding Leeway and her hard work in uniting disparate elements of this community.

The number of people at work for the dying and for those living with terminal illness is growing. Some of us have worked with and been inspired by Florence Wald and Catherine Kennedy, others by their examples. The collection which we now open in their honor is meant to support others in developing their initiatives to provide care for the dying and their families: to draw on their own experiences, to learn anew, to develop strengths, to work and to train others in order to support each other in our common struggles to end life in peace and comfort.