Mrs. Mary B. Wade, a widow and now nearly eighty years of age, but a woman of remarkable energy and perseverance, was throughout the whole four and a half years, as constantly at her post, as faithful and as efficient as any of the Executive Committee of the Saloon. Suffering from slight lameness, she literally hobbled down to the Saloon with a cane, by night or day; but she was never absent. Her kind, winning and motherly ways made her always a great favorite with the soldiers, who always called her Mother Wade. She is a woman of rare conscientiousness, truthfulness and amiability of character. She is a native of Southwark, Philadelphia, and the widow of a sea-captain.
Mrs. Ellen J. Lowry, a widow upwards of fifty years of age, a native of Baltimore, was in the beginning of the War a woman of large and powerful frame, and was surpassed by none in faithfulness and efficiency, but her labors among the wounded from Gettysburg seriously injured her health, and have rendered her, probably a permanent invalid; she suffered severely from typhoid fever, and her life was in peril in the summer of 1864.
Mrs. Margaret Boyer, a native of Philadelphia, the wife of a sea-captain, but in very humble circumstances, and advanced in years, was also one of the faithful untiring workers of the Union Saloon, but like Mrs. Lowry, lost her health by her care of the Gettysburg wounded, and those from the great battles of Grant's Campaign.
Mrs. Mary B. Wade.
Engd. by A.H. Ritchie.
Mrs. Priscilla Grover and Mrs. Green, both women about sixty years of age, were constant in their attendance and remarkably faithful in their services at the Saloon. Our record of these remarkable women of advanced age would be incomplete did we omit Mrs. Mary Grover, Mrs. Hannah Smith, Mrs. Sarah Femington and Miss Sarah Holland, all noble, persevering and efficient nurses, and strongly attached to their work. Nor were the younger women lacking in skill, patience or activity. Mrs. Ellen B. Barrows, wife of the Chairman of the Saloon, though blessed with more ample means of usefulness than some of the others, was second to none in her untiring energy and persistency in the discharge of her duties both in the hospitals and the Saloon. Mrs. Eliza J. Smith, whose excessive labors have nearly cost her her life, Mrs. Mary A. Cassedy, Mrs. Kate B. Anderson, Mrs. Mary E. Field, Mrs. Emily Mason, Mrs. Anna A. Elkinton and Mrs. Hannah F. Bailey were all notable women for their steady and efficient work in the hospitals and Saloon. Of Mrs. Mary W. Lee and her daughter, Miss Amanda Lee, we have spoken elsewhere.
Miss Catharine Bailey, Mrs. Eliza Helmbold, Mrs. Mary Courteney, Mrs. Elizabeth Horton and Misses Grover, Krider and Field were all useful and active, though their duties were less severe than those we have previously named.
The Cooper Shop Saloon was smaller and its work consequently less severe, yet, as we have seen, the labors of Miss Ross in its hospital proved too severe for even her vigorous constitution, and she added another to the long list of blessed martyrs in the cause of liberty. Others there were in that Saloon and hospital, who, by faithful labor, patient and self-denying toil, and great sacrifices, won for themselves an honorable place in that record which the great day of assize shall reveal. We may not know their names, but God knows them, and will reward them for their deeds of mercy and love.