onored.

There was, however, in these varied efforts for the soldiers a lack of
concentration and efficiency which rendered them less serviceable than
they otherwise might have been. The different organizations and
committees working independently of each other, not unfrequently
furnished over-abundant supplies to some regiments or hospitals, while
others were left to lack, and many who had the disposition to give,
hesitated from want of knowledge or confidence in the organizations
which would disburse the funds. The churches of the city though giving
freely when called upon, were not contributing systematically, or
putting forth their full strength in the service. It was this conviction
of the need of a more methodical and comprehensive organization to which
the churches, committees, and smaller associations should become
tributary, which led to the formation of the Women's Relief Association,
as a branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. This Association
was organized November 23d, 1862, at a meeting held by the Ladies of
Brooklyn, in the Lecture Room of the Church of the Pilgrims, and MRS.
MARIAMNE FITCH STRANAHAN, was chosen President, and Miss Kate E.
Waterbury, Secretary, with an Executive Committee of twelve ladies of
high standing and patriotic impulses. The selection of President and
Secretary was eminently a judicious one. MRS. STRANAHAN was a native of
Westmoreland, Oneida County, New York, and had received for the time,
and the region in which her childhood and youth was passed, superior
advantages of education. She was married in 1837, to Mr. James S. T.
Stranahan, then a merchant of Florence, Oneida County, New York, but who
removed with his family in 1840, to Newark, New Jersey, and in 1845,
took up his residence in Brooklyn. Here they occupied a high social
position, Mr. Stranahan having been elected a Representative to the
Thirty-fourth Congress, and subsequently appointed to other positions of
responsibility in the city and State. Mrs. Stranahan was active in every
good work in the city of her adoption, and those who knew her felt that
they could confide in her judgment, her discernment, her tact, and her
unflinching integrity and principle. For eight years she was the first
Directress of the "Graham Institute, for the relief of Aged and Indigent
Females," a position requiring the exercise of rare abilities, and the
most skilful management, to harmonize the discords, and quiet the
misunderstand