The W. R. C. has started a fund for the perpetual care of the Prison Pen Park. We began last year and have already $3,000 in the fund. The yearly income is to be added to the principal, and none to be used until the proceeds are sufficient to support the place.
We are to set aside annually not less than $1,000 for the increase of the fund, besides caring for current expenses.
You will, I am sure, be much interested in the situation. I have been Chairman of the Board from the beginning and hope to live long enough to see sufficient money set aside to care for the place forever.
Yours in F. C. and L.,
LIZABETH A. TURNER,
Chairman Andersonville Prison Board of Control.”
Mrs. Turner served as President of the Woman’s Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, and was appointed by her compeers as Life Chairman of the Andersonville Prison Board. Her death occurred at Andersonville on April 27, 1907.
A monument suitable to her memory, erected by the Woman’s Relief Corps, adorns the prison grounds for which she spared not her life to preserve and beautify.
From the Annual Address of Mrs. Fanny E. Minot, President of the Woman’s National Relief Corps, at the Twenty-third Annual Convention, 1905:
“In March it was my privilege, in company with Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Winans and Mrs. Kate E. Jones, to visit Prison Park at Andersonville. As I walked through the grounds and read and pondered on the suffering there endured, it seemed, indeed, a hallowed spot. Just beyond is the National Cemetery, in whose broad trenches are interred more soldiers in one group than upon any battlefield on the face of the globe. A whole army perished rather than deny the country which gave them birth! The bravery of the men at Thermopylae has been the theme of song and story; but they fought in the shadows of their soul-inspiring mountains, while these men, removed from the activities of war, the flash of arms, the long array of men eager for the contest, dragged out a miserable existence till death came to their relief. If ever men were loyal, true and brave, whose names should be inscribed on honor’s roll, it was these.”
“Who tasted death at every breath
And bravely met their martyrdom.”