Mary Ann Ball "Mother" Bickerdyke

Born:  July 19, 1817, Mount Vernon, Ohio

Died:  November 8, 1901, Bunker Hill, Kansas

Resting Place:  Linwood Cemetery, Galesburg, Illinois

Brief History:  Bickerdyke began to attend the Congregational Church in Galesburg shortly after she became a widow. In 1861, the minister of Mary Ann’s church, Reverend Edward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, sent out a plea for help for the Union soldiers stationed in Cairo, Illinois. She immediately took charge of sanitary conditions and nursing at the camp, and when a hospital was built, she was appointed matron with the blessing of the commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant. Under Bickerdyke’s supervision, about 300 field hospitals were built with the help of U.S. Sanitary Commission agents. She routinely risked her own life, entering the disputed area of battlefields between the two competing armies to help retrieve wounded soldiers. In 1862, she became an employee of the United States Sanitary Commission, earning fifty dollars per month to assist the soldiers. The troopers came to call Bickerdyke "Mother," due to her great concern for the men's wellbeing. After meeting Mary Livermore, she was appointed a field agent for the Northwestern branch of the Sanitary Commission. Grant endorsed her efforts and detailed soldiers to her hospital train, and when his army moved down the Mississippi, Bickerdyke went, too, setting up hospitals where they were needed.

Bickerdyke became a matron of the hospital in only five months. Mary Ann was soon appointed a field agent by the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which gave her a monthly wage. Having obtained General Grant’s trust, Mary Ann was also given a pass that allowed her to follow the army and be in the camps to assist the soldiers. Mary Ann was not only known for her adherence to cleanliness, but she was also a terrific forager. She cared little for her own safety and well-being and although cleanly in her appearance, she wore only a simple calico dress. During 1866–67 she worked with the Chicago Home for the Friendless, and in 1867, in connection with a plan to settle veterans on Kansas farmland, she opened a boarding house in Salina with backing from the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Part of her work during this campaign was to collect personal items of soldiers killed in battle and return them to the soldiers' homes. When members of the general staff complained about her behavior, it is said that General William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed “I can’t do a thing in the world. She ranks me!”