teaching gentlewomen and housewives the rudiments of plain and fancy cooking, but her interests eventually led her to develop a complete work of diet and nutrition for the ill, titled Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent which contained thirty pages on diabetes. Farmer was invited to lecture at Harvard Medical School and began teaching convalescent diet and nutrition to doctors and nurses. She felt so strongly about the significance of proper food for the sick that she believed she would be remembered chiefly by her work in that field, as opposed to her work in household and fancy cookery. Farmer understood perhaps better than anyone else at the time the value of appearance, taste, and presentation of sickroom food to ill and wasted people with poor appetites; she ranked these qualities over cost and nutritional value in importance. Later life During the last seven years of her life, Farmer used a wheelchair. Despite her immobility she continued to write, invent recipes, and lecture, giving her last ten days before her death. The Boston Evening Transcript published her lectures, which were picked up by newspapers nationwide. Farmer also lectured to nurses and dietitians, and taught a course on dietary preparation at Harvard Medical School. Farmer died in 1915 at age 57 of complications of a stroke, and was interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. One hundred and three years later The New York Times published a belated obituary for her. Works A complete list of editions may be found at Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. [Republication of ''What to Have for Dinner: Containing Menus with Recipes for their Preparation (1905).] References Further reading External links Farmer, Fannie Merritt at encyclopedia.com Feeding America: Fannie Merritt Farmer The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, 1896 edition, by Fannie Merrit Farmer The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, 1918 edition, by Fannie Merritt Farmer Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent, 1904 edition, by Fannie Merritt Farmer 1857 births 1915 deaths American cookbook writers American food writers American women non-fiction writers Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery People from Medford, Massachusetts Writers from Boston Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts History of American cuisine