Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-09

NdlioHdI SeHlOF wee freslueHI, ARMY
service in the hospitals exactly as men
were mustered in for service at the front,
and one faced about as many terrors as the
other.
Hundreds of women came out Of their
three and four years of arduouS service,
looking old and worn. They had many Of
them nursed smallpox patients by the
hundreds, to fall victims at last to the same
disease, and while it marred the faces only,
of many, it left others blind or nearly so.
Typhoid fever wrecked the health of many
and taking 1T all around, the band of 500
women for about that number were regu-
larry commissioned suffered intensely.
Association Formed.
In 1895 about sixty of these war women,
led by Mrs. Emily Woodley of Pennsyl-
vania, organized the National Association
of Army Nurses Of the late war" In 1898
they found it necessary to amend their title
as to the last part, and are now known as
the nurses of the Civil War; the war
with Spain, and its crop of women nurses
making later war than that of the re-
bellion.
The Andrew G. Curtin Society of Phila-
delphia is the Oldest in the organization, and
dates back to war days, when a band of
women organized for relief purposes began
the work among the young soldier boys
winch mas now grown into great national
organization. There are not many societies
OF the national army nurses, and they will
soon see dust gathering on their charters,
for time does not stand still and the army
nurses are growing old
The army nurses are the pets of all the
other patriotic organizations and thew are
nearly sworshiped by the. veterans The
scenes when some of the legless or armless
or one-eyed old soldiers meet the par
ticular nurse who stood over him when his
hour of suffering came and would not let
him die most pathetic.
Not half dozen of the members of the
National Association of Army Nurses are
nov MD cixyft- n,,I
long passed seventy. They are nearly all
Of them quite feeble, and have to be SUM-
ported as they walk. Mother" Bickerdyke
who was perhaps the most famous of them
all, died last year. She was noted as the
nurse who, when asked what business she
had to interfere with the young lieutenant
who thought he owned the world, stopped
long enough in her busy round of the hos
pital which the young lieutenant was mis-
managing, and taking him in from the tips
of his fine boots to the top of his small
head, replied bluntly: I've got a commits
sion from God Almighty to look after these
boys, and He ranks you!'
He surely did, for the lieutenant speedily
found himself doing field duty again A
colonel appealed to General Sherman against
Mother Bickerdyke once, saying she was
disobeytng his orders and he wished her
disciplined. Sherman, ever fond of the
sturdy woman, whose nature was so much
like his own, replied briefly: She ranks me;
1 can do nothing for you" And that end.
ed that trouble.
The Officers in Charge.
The officers of the national organization
are: Mrs. Della B. Fay, New York, presi-
dent; Margaret Hamilton, Massachusetts,
senior vice president; Rebecca Kripps
Pennsylvania, Junior vice president; Eliza
beth Chapman, East st. Louis, Mo, chap
lain; Nancy NJ Hill, M. D., Debuque, Iowa,
treasurer; Elizabeth M. Newton, Bingham
ton, N. Y, guard; Ada Johnson, st. Louis,
Mo-, counselor.
Those who are prominent among the army