s
manifested kindness, and a warm interest in their welfare. These
services have been gratuitously rendered, and she has given up customary
recreations, and sacrificed ease and social pleasure to attend to these
duties of humanity. Her reward will be found in the consciousness of
having done good to the defenders of her native land, and in the
blessing of those who were ready to perish, to whom her kind services,
and words of good cheer came as a healing balm in the hour of
despondency, and strengthened them for a renewal of their efforts in the
cause of country and liberty.

Among the devoted women who have made themselves martyrs to the work of
helping our patriotic soldiers and their families in St. Louis, was the
late MRS. MARY E. PALMER. She was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey,
June 28th, 1827, and her maiden name was Locker. She was married in
February, 1847, to Mr. Samuel Palmer. In 1855 she removed to Kansas, and
in 1857 returned as far eastward as St. Louis, where she resided until
her death.

In the beginning of the war, when battles began to be fought, and the
sick and wounded were brought to our hospitals to be treated and cared
for, Mrs. Palmer with true patriotic devotion and womanly sympathy
offered her services to this good cause, and after a variety of hospital
work in the fall of 1863, she entered into the service of the Ladies'
Union Aid Society of St. Louis as a regular visiter among the soldiers'
families, many of whom needed aid and work, during the absence of their
natural protectors in the army. It was a field of great labor and
usefulness; for in so large a city there were thousands of poor women,
whose husbands often went months without pay, or the means of sending it
home to their families, who were obliged to appeal for assistance in
taking care of themselves and children. To prevent imposition it was
necessary that they should be visited, the requisite aid rendered, and
sewing or other work provided by which they could earn a part of their
own support, a proper discrimination being made between the worthy and
unworthy, the really suffering, and those who would impose on the
charity of the society under the plea of necessity.

In this work Mrs. Palmer was most faithful and constant, going from day
to day through a period of nearly two years, in summer and winter, in
sunshine and storm, to the abodes of these people, to find out their
real necessities, to report to the society and to secu