Isabella Bird

Born in Yorkshire, England, on October 15, 1831, Isabella Lucy Bird could have been described as a rambunctious little girl if it were not for the illness that often confined her to bed. She began traveling in her early twenties as a remedy to her back pain. The letters she sent home to her younger sister, Henrietta, became the source for her travel writings. The first woman to be elected to the Royal Geographical Society, Bird died in Edinburgh, Scotland, on October 7, 1904, with the final observation that she was “going home.”