Amanda Cajander
Finnish nurse and deaconess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mathilda Fredrika "Amanda" Cajander, née Nygren (10 January 1827 – 23 February 1871),[1] was a Finnish deaconess and a pioneer within medical care in Finland.
10 January 1827
Amanda Cajander | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mathilda Fredrika Nygren 10 January 1827 |
| Died | 23 February 1871 (aged 44) |
| Occupations | Nurse, deaconess |
| Spouse | Anders Cajander |
Life
Cajander married the doctor Anders Cajander in 1848 and had two children. In 1856, by the age of 29, however, she was widowed and her children had died.[2] After this loss, Cajander moved to train as a deaconess at the Evangelical Deaconess Institute in Saint Petersburg.[3] The wealthy Finnish philanthropist Aurora Karamsin was familiar with the institute and when she decided to open a deaconess institution in Helsinki she invited Cajander to be its first principal.[4] The institute opened in December 1867,[5] during the great Famine of 1866–68. To begin with, the institute was modest – a small hospital with eight beds, an orphanage and an asylum – and aimed to primarily help women and children and to care for the sick.[4]
In 1869 Cajander founded a children's home in Helsinki.[6]
She is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.[7]
Legacy
Cajander and Karamsin are considered the first Christian philanthropists in Finland, and are credited with introducing the new idea of women having a vocation to work for the church.[4] The first deaconess educated in Finland became Cecilia Blomqvist. The secular nursing profession for women in Finland did not start until the nursing courses of Anna Broms in the 1880s.