the
Western Sanitary Commission as a nurse in the hospitals. She was already
known as a person of excellent Christian character, of education and
refinement, of real practical ability, the widow of a deceased
clergyman, and full of the spirit of kindness and patriotic sympathy
towards our brave soldiers in the field. Her services were gladly
accepted, and she entered at once upon her duties as a nurse in the
Fifth Street Hospital at St. Louis, which was in charge of the excellent
Dr. John T. Hodgen, an eminent surgeon of that city.

For nearly two years Mrs. Starr served as nurse in this hospital, having
charge of one of the special diet kitchens, and ministering with her own
hands to the sick and wounded inmates. In these services the great
kindness of her manners, the cheerful and hopeful spirit that animated
her, the words of sympathy and encouragement she gave her patients, and
the efficiency and excellence of everything she did won for her a large
measure of esteem and confidence, and made her a favorite nurse with the
authorities of the hospital, and with the sick and wounded, who received
her ministrations and care. Small in stature, it was wonderful how much
labor she was able to accomplish, and how she was sustained by a soul
full of noble purposes and undoubting faith.

In the autumn of 1863 Mrs. Starr was needed by the Western Sanitary
Commission to take the position of Matron of the Soldiers' Home at
Memphis, to have charge of the domestic arrangements of the institution,
and to extend a true hospitality to the many invalid soldiers going on
furlough to their homes or returning to the hospitals, or to their
regiments, passing through Memphis on their way. The number thus
entertained sometimes reached as high as three hundred and fifty in one
day. The average daily number for two years and a half was one hundred
and six. When the Home was first opened, and before it was much known,
the first guests were brought in by Mrs. Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin,
who found them wandering in the streets, sadly in need of a kind friend
to give them assistance and care. Sometimes the Superintendent, Mr. O.
E. Waters, would have from twenty to thirty discharged, furloughed and
invalid soldiers to aid, in collecting their pay, procuring
transportation, many of whom he found lying on the hard pavements in the
streets and on the bluff near the steamboat landing, in a helpless
condition, with no friend to assist them. The obje