women of Philadelphia, by whom such great and
untiring labors for the soldiers were performed, few did better service
in a quiet and unostentatious manner than Mrs. Greble. Indeed so very
quietly did she work that she almost fulfilled the Scripture injunction
of secrecy as to good deeds.

The maiden name of Mrs. Greble was Susan Virginia Major. She was born in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, being descended on the mother's side from
a family of Quakers who were devoted to their country in the days of the
Revolution with a zeal so active and outspoken as to cause them to lose
their membership in the Society of Friends. Fighting Quakers there have
been in both great American wars, men whose principles of peace, though
not easily shaken, were less firm than their patriotism, and their
traits have in many instances been emulated in the female members of
their families. This seems to have been the case with Mrs. Greble.

Her eldest son, John, she devoted to the service of his country. He
entered the Military Academy at West Point in 1850, at the age of
sixteen, graduating honorably, and continuing in the service until June,
1861, when he fell at the disastrous battle of Great Bethel, one of the
earliest martyrs of liberty in the rebellion. Another son, and the only
one remaining after the death of the lamented Lieutenant Greble, when
but eighteen years of age, enlisted, served faithfully, and nearly lost
his life by typhoid fever. A son-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Ninetieth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and a brave soldier, was for many
months a prisoner of war, and experienced the horrors of three different
Southern prisons. Thus, by inheritance, patriotic, and by personal
suffering and loss keenly aroused to sympathy with her country's brave
defenders, Mrs. Greble from the first devoted herself earnestly and
untiringly to every work of kindness and aid which suggested itself.
Blessed with abundant means, she used them in the most liberal manner in
procuring comforts for the sick and wounded in hospitals.

There was ample scope for such labors among the numerous hospitals of
Philadelphia. Now it was blankets she sent to the hospital where they
were most needed. Again a piece of sheeting already hemmed and washed.
Almost daily in the season of fruit she drove to the hospitals with
bushel baskets filled with the choicest the market afforded, to tempt
the fever-parched lips, and refresh the languishing sufferers. Weekly
she