May 6 to 12 was National Nurses Week, and the Ridge Historical Society did not forget about nurses! One recent history story we posted included the role of nurses in caring for patients during the influenza epidemic in 1918. Nurses bravely went into the homes of quarantined patients to help families care for their sick, plus assist with other domestic tasks, risking illness themselves.
We've also been doing research on some of the earliest nurses on the Ridge – those from the U. S. Civil War era.
Nursing as a profession was in its infancy then, and there were no formal nursing education programs. In fact, there were not even many hospitals – only about 150 in the country.
Thousands of women served as nurses during the U. S. Civil War. At first, women were considered too delicate to be able to withstand the conditions of tending to the sick and wounded, but they soon proved themselves through their determination, hard work and sacrifice.
Women started as volunteers, but thanks to the efforts of Clara Barton, a U.S. Army corps of nurses was formed in 1861. They were paid 40 cents per day for their service. (Male nurses were paid many times that, more than $200 per month.)
The nurses who "enlisted" came from many backgrounds: soldiers’ wives who had accompanied their husbands to military camps, local residents from the areas where camps were set up, religious institutions, and relief organizations. Not only did they deal with the injured, they also cared for patients with pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria. Two-thirds of the deaths in the Civil War were from disease, not injury.
The graves of two nurses from the Civil War have been found in Ridge cemeteries. Mount Greenwood Cemetery includes the grave of Catherine E. Near. (Her name is spelled as Katherine on the stone; she went by Kate.) She was from Blue Island, and she died in 1908. Her maiden name was Fay. Her brother was Jerome Fay, of Fay's Point in Blue Island.
At the entrance to Memorial Park on 127th Street in Blue Island is a display of old tombstones dating back to the days when the park was the Blue Island Cemetery. One of the stones belonged to Clarissa F. McClintock, U. S. Army Nurse. Her background is being researched.