She was the daughter of the Military Attaché at the Swedish Embassy, Edvard Brändström (1850–1921) and his wife Anna Wilhelmina Eschelsson (1855–1913).

In 1906, Brändström, now a general, became the Swedish Ambassador at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and returned to Saint Petersburg.

[1] In 1915, Brändström went to Siberia together with her friend and nurse Ethel von Heidenstam (1881–1970) for the Swedish Red Cross, to introduce basic medical treatment for the German and Austrian POWs.

For the dedication with which she looked after men from Germany and Austria, many close to death with Typhoid fever, she became known as the Angel of Siberia.

[2][3] Back in St. Petersburg, she founded a Swedish Aid organisation but her work was severely hindered by the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik coup.

In 1918, the new Soviet Russian authorities withdrew her work permit, but she did not give up and made several trips to Siberia until being arrested in Omsk in 1920.

After her release, she returned to Sweden via Stettin on the ship MS Lisboa, where the German government gave her an official public reception.

[6] In 1923, she undertook a six-month tour in the United States, giving lectures to raise money for a new home for children of deceased and traumatised German and Austrian POWs.

At a stop at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, Brändström wore clothing of the Swedish Red Cross and "spoke about her thrilling experiences in Russia and Siberia during and after the war.

[12] A ceremony at Arne-Karlsson-Park in Vienna on 16 September 1965 preceded the official opening of the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross.

This monument, by the sculptor Robert Ullmann, stands as a testimony of gratitude to the famous Swedish nurse's work for German-Austrian prisoners during the First World War.