Mary BordenMary Borden was an American-British novelist and poet whose work was inspired by her experiences as a military nurse. She was the second of three children born to William Borden, who built a fortune in Colorado silver mining in the late 1870s. Mary Brden, also known as May by her friends and family, was born into an affluent Chicago family. Her brother, William Whiting Borden, became well-known in conservative Christian circles for his evangelical zeal and early death while training to be a missionary. Mary attended Vassar College and graduated with a BA in 1907. When the First World War broke out in 1914, she used her own considerable funds to equip and staff a field hospital for French soldiers near the Western Front, where she worked as a nurse from 1914 until the war's end (see Voluntary Aid Detachment). There, she met Brigadier General Edward Louis Spears, with whom she had a romance at the Front. Her husband had separated from her and taken custody of their children. Following her divorce, she married Spears in 1918. Read More Read Less