Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
July E
The Clara Barton Memorial
By Alice Hubbard
N the evening of May Four-
teenth, Nineteen Hundred
Twelve, just a month after
Clara Barton had joined the
Choir Invisible, there was a
National Memorial service
held for her in the Garrick
1 Theater, Philadelphia.
' The Philadelphia School for
Nurses made this the oppor-
‘L g , timity for their annual meet-
- . ing. Miss Lillian Frazier, who
3.49%., is principal of this school, had
much to do in arranging the Memorial, and
great credit is due her for making this evening
one long to be remembered.
Clara Barton had anticipated that there might
be such a service, and had said to her friend of
many years, Doctor Eugene Underhillz “ If
there should be such a meeting, Doctor, I want
you to give the address. It is not at all neces-
sary to have a memorial; but if my friends
desire it, I want you to bethe principal speaker.
Do not make it a serious occasion. Let the
people laugh if they want to, and tell stories.
There is no reason why it should be solemn.”
(I To carry out the wishes of Clara Barton
seemed to be every one’s desire. It was not a
solemn occasion, but it was an impressive one.
(I The stage and the boxes of this beautiful
theater were decorated with flags that had
been presented to Clara Barton. Some of them
were of heavy silk, rich and magnificent. Some
of them were battle-stained and bullet-scarred.
Some of them Clara Barton had carried on to
the battlefield, holding the Red Cross high,
that the sick, the wounded, the dying, might
see, while she was yet a long way off, that
help was coming.
There were flags from England, Germany,
Belgium, Italy, France, Russia, Cuba, Prussia,
Holland, Greece and Switzerland.
Even the unspeakable Turks knew of the
"loving ministrations of this woman, and had
:given her their flag.
Just to have seen this collection of flags from
‘over the world, brought together through the
mercy and loving-kindness of one woman,
made us feel that a Peace Proclamation was
not an impossible thing.
‘Clara Barton had seen several of these
FIIH
One Hundred Nine
countries in the agonies of war. All these
countries had received, through their wounded
and dying, the ministrations of Clara Barton.
Her heart had throbbed with theirs in the
agony and horrors of war. dIAnd there was
also the flag of the United States.
Clara Barton’s Endurance
gm; OCTOR A. MONAE LESSER, a war
‘ surgeon of renown, who had been on
the battlefield with Clara Barton, told us a
little of his experience as Surgeon-in-Chief of
the American National Red Cross. He was
with Clara Barton many days and weeks in
the Spanish-American war. He said he never
knew a human being to have such endurance
as this little woman had.
Clara Barton was seventy-six years old when
she worked in Cuba with Doctor Lesser. He
had seen her on the battlefield, horrible as only
a battlefield can be, slippery and’ awful with
the lifeblood of our best American youths;
the sun pouring its stifling heat upon the dead
and dying, and the thermometer registering
one hundred ten degrees in the shade. Men
fainted from the fatigue and heat and nerve-
strain. But Clara Barton carried life and hope
to the suffering, days and nights, without rest
or cessation from work. “ Her endurance is
unprecedented, and I have never known her
equal.” ([Doctor Underhill, later in the
evening, told us that Doctor Lesser, himself,
after the Battle of San Juan Hill, had worked
at the operating-table for thirty hours with-
out rest. And all that time, and for hours
after, Clara Barton did not rest.
Among the ruins of the battlefield, Clara
Barton organized a hospital corps; she con-
structed a temporary hospital and manned it.
Her executive ability was so great that men
in high standing in office, even in military
service, gladly did her bidding, knowing they
were responding to superior wisdom.
The Relief Funds We Sent
‘ V RS. JOHN A. LOGAN, wife of Gen-
W eral Logan, told us of the relief funds
that were sent to Clara Barton in this Spanish-
American war. The women in Revolutionary
times seemed to have had a better under-
standing of what the sick and the wounded
needed on the battlefield, and they sent
materials which nurses and doctors could use.
(1 But in later years we either get a mania or a
panic when we are asked to look upon a
serious condition. We act with as much reason