contented to
abide by the will of Providence, convinced that if God had any work for
her to do He would spare her life. During this time her husband was
often absent, being first in the Massachusetts Legislature, and
afterwards sent out as Agent by the Northeastern Aid Society to Kansas,
which they were desirous to settle as a free State. Into this last duty
she insisted with energy that he should enter. During his absence she
experienced other afflictions, but her health notwithstanding rallied,
and as soon as possible she made preparations to remove to Kansas where
Mr. Pomeroy wished to make a home. In the spring of 1857 she finally
arrived there, and there she remained until the spring of 1861, when she
accompanied her husband to Washington, when he went thither to take his
seat in the Senate.
The hardships and the usefulness of her life in Kansas are matters of
history, and it is truly surprising to read how one so long an invalid
was enabled to perform such protracted and exhausted labors. All who
knew her there bear ample and enthusiastic testimony to the usefulness
of her life. To the whites she was friend, hostess, counsellor,
assistant, in sickness and in health. To the poor and despised blacks,
striving to find freedom, she was friend and teacher, even at the time
when her near neighborhood to the slave State of Missouri, made the
service most dangerous. Then followed the terrible famine year of 1860.
During all that time she freely gave her services in the work of
providing for the sufferers. Mr. Pomeroy, aided by the knowledge he had
acquired in his experience as Agent of Emigration, was able at once to
put the machinery in motion for obtaining supplies from the East, and
Mrs. Pomeroy transformed her home into an office of distribution, of
which she was superintendent and chief clerk. It was a year that taxed
far too heavily her already much exhausted strength.
When she accompanied her husband to Washington in the spring, her health
failed, cough and hoarseness troubled her, and she was obliged to leave
for visits in her native air, and for a stay of some months at Geneva
Water Cure.
From the breaking out of the war Mrs. Pomeroy, on all occasions, proved
herself desirous of the welfare of our soldiers. The record of her deeds
of kindness in their behalf is not as ample as that of some others, for
her health forbade the active nursing, and visiting of the sick in
hospitals, which is the most showy part
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