Rebecca Pomroy

Background

Pomroy was the daughter of Samuel and Dorcas Holliday. Her father was a captain of a merchant ship, and died when she was 10, and she, her mother and her three sisters lived on income from sewing.

Career

During the Civil War, she worked in military hospitals, and also looked after the family of President Abraham Lincoln twice. When her only surviving son enlisted in the, she offered her services to She was at once called to, and in September 1861 assigned to duty in Georgetown Hospital, but was soon transferred to the hospital at.

Early in 1862 she was called to the at the time of the death of, and nursed “,” the youngest son, then very ill, and, until both were restored to health.

Pomroy then returned to the hospital and continued in her work. In 1864, when the president"s life was threatened and Mary Lincoln was suffering from injuries that she had received in a fall from her carriage, Pomroy again went to the White House.

Later in the year, she spent some time at the West Hospital in Baltimore, but ultimately returned to the hospital at Columbian University. Refusing advantageous offers to go elsewhere, she remained at her post until the close of the war.

Then she was stricken with, and was an invalid for several years.

She became matron in 1867 of a reformatory home for girls at, and then of the Newton Home for Orphans and Destitute Girls, which became the Rebecca Pomroy Home after her death.

Achievements

• Sickness in her own family for nearly twenty years made her an accomplished nurse