Women Caring For Sick and Injured Loved Ones

Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Location
Ohio
Many women became nurses during the Civil War because of illness or injury to a loved one serving in the line of fire.

"Ellon McCormick Looby was born in Ireland in 1834, immigrated to the United States as a teenager, and married another Irishman, Rody Looby, in Waddington, NY 1854. They had three sons, John (1860), William (1866) , and Richard (1870). In December 1863 Rody enlisted in the 14th NY Heavy Artillery at Potsdam and served for several months before he was wounded in the Battle of Petersburg in July 1864. When Ellon received word of her husband’s injury, she “left Norwood with my only child 4 year old in my arms and started for city point.” City Point Hospital was located near Richmond, VA. Rody was transferred to the Central Park Hospital in VA and Ellon served there as a nurse from August 1864 through the end of the war in 1865." http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/nurses.htm
 
"Maria Eastman Olmstead Eldred. She was born in 1842 to William and Eunice Eastman of Pierrepont, New York. She married George Eastman early in 1863; he enlisted in the 13th NY Cavalry, leaving for Washington, DC in June. Maria gave birth to their only child on January 2, 1864. George was wounded and Maria spent nine months nursing him in Falls Church, Virginia. Her husband died on March 30, 1866 and her son Frankie died on March 16, 1868 at age 4 years. Later she married Holden Eldred, a Pierrepont farmer, and had a daughter, Nettie, who was born in 1876." http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/nurses.htm
 
"Alvira Beech Robinson came from Pierrepont where she was born in 1835. She married David Robinson and had three children: George (1856), Charles (1860), and Sarah (1861). Two of Alvira’s brothers, Alva and Enos, enlisted early in 1861; her husband David enlisted in the 60th NY Infantry in October 1861. David was killed at Antietam in September 1862 and she returned to work as school teacher with three small children to raise. In May 1863 Alva was shot in the leg and asked his sister to come to nurse him. She left her children with her mother and spent 2 months nursing Alva and also worked in the government printing office to defray her expenses in Washington." http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/nurses.htm
 
Miss Mary A. B. Young, the sister of Captain James Young of the 60th NY Volunteers, died of the fever at her nursing post in Annapolis, MD., in January of 1865.
 
Not only women went to nurse there kin, My GGU James Conrad went to Fort Randell DAC TERR after his brother Lorenso lost his left forearm and most of his right hand while firing a saulte at the fallof Richmond. Lorenso 6thIowa Cav was detaile to the Praire Battery. James had been a 100 day soldier in The 46 Iowa Inf.
 
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