Norman Dasinger Jr
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2021
Nellie Bryce
and the Tuscaloosa Alabama Confederate Monument
By Norman Dasinger, Jr
In 1908, for the book Historic Southern Monuments, Nellie Clarkson Bryce wrote a short biography of the Confederate Monument located at Greenwood Cemetery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Marie Ellen "Nellie" Clarkson married Peter Bryce in November of 1860 in Charleston, South Carolina. On her wedding night, long streamers bearing the words 'Separate State Action' floated over their South Carolina home; indicating the strong secession feeling infecting the town following Lincoln's Election to President of the United States earlier that same month. Nellie's new husband, Dr. Bryce, had just been hired as the superintendent of the recently constructed, state of the art hospital for the "insane" at Tuscaloosa upon the recommendation of Dorthea Dix. Upon their arrival in Tuscaloosa, the newlyweds lived in the hospital with the patients. Through their pioneering measures, The Bryces are considered to be one our country's most tenacious advocates for those suffering from mental illness. Dr Bryce served as the superintendent for 31 years. He won national recognition by his humane methods of treating the mentally ill by abolishing the practice of using handcuffs and strait jackets to restrain patients. Nellie was said to a 'great joiner'. In Tuscaloosa, she belonged to over thirty civic organizations. Among those were the Druid City Literary Club, the Robert E Rodes Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Red Cross. She was, wrote a visitor from the North, "widely known as the sweetest woman in Alabama."
As a member of the UDC, in 1908, she wrote about Tuscaloosa's Confederate Monument by stating, "[It] stands in Greenwood Cemetery, which is the old city cemetery: a quant old place in which there are some very old graves . . .[The monument] is a rather plain severe column of the obelisk type, imposed on a hexagonal base . . . its very plainness . . . bespeak in a manner of the rigors of the life in our Southland at the time of its erection in 1868, so soon after the close of the war of Southern Invasion. "
The local Ladies Memorial Association raised the funds to erect this memorial. By 1896, this same group had disbanded but reformed as the Robert E Rodes Chapter of the UDC. Mrs. Bryce added, "The monument was erected by the women of Tuscaloosa, who wished to honor the dead soldiery of the South – those dead who gave their happiness, their worldly goods and finally their lives."
and the Tuscaloosa Alabama Confederate Monument
By Norman Dasinger, Jr
In 1908, for the book Historic Southern Monuments, Nellie Clarkson Bryce wrote a short biography of the Confederate Monument located at Greenwood Cemetery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Marie Ellen "Nellie" Clarkson married Peter Bryce in November of 1860 in Charleston, South Carolina. On her wedding night, long streamers bearing the words 'Separate State Action' floated over their South Carolina home; indicating the strong secession feeling infecting the town following Lincoln's Election to President of the United States earlier that same month. Nellie's new husband, Dr. Bryce, had just been hired as the superintendent of the recently constructed, state of the art hospital for the "insane" at Tuscaloosa upon the recommendation of Dorthea Dix. Upon their arrival in Tuscaloosa, the newlyweds lived in the hospital with the patients. Through their pioneering measures, The Bryces are considered to be one our country's most tenacious advocates for those suffering from mental illness. Dr Bryce served as the superintendent for 31 years. He won national recognition by his humane methods of treating the mentally ill by abolishing the practice of using handcuffs and strait jackets to restrain patients. Nellie was said to a 'great joiner'. In Tuscaloosa, she belonged to over thirty civic organizations. Among those were the Druid City Literary Club, the Robert E Rodes Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Red Cross. She was, wrote a visitor from the North, "widely known as the sweetest woman in Alabama."
As a member of the UDC, in 1908, she wrote about Tuscaloosa's Confederate Monument by stating, "[It] stands in Greenwood Cemetery, which is the old city cemetery: a quant old place in which there are some very old graves . . .[The monument] is a rather plain severe column of the obelisk type, imposed on a hexagonal base . . . its very plainness . . . bespeak in a manner of the rigors of the life in our Southland at the time of its erection in 1868, so soon after the close of the war of Southern Invasion. "
The local Ladies Memorial Association raised the funds to erect this memorial. By 1896, this same group had disbanded but reformed as the Robert E Rodes Chapter of the UDC. Mrs. Bryce added, "The monument was erected by the women of Tuscaloosa, who wished to honor the dead soldiery of the South – those dead who gave their happiness, their worldly goods and finally their lives."
Bringing the