Wishard, the superintendent; and when the office was vacated by his
death, she was authorized to assume his responsibilities, and
perform his duties, with the exception of receipting bills and
drawing appropriations, which latter duties, not being then
considered as within the province of a woman, were delegated to the
steward until the doctor's successor could be legally appointed.

She was a lady of intelligence and true moral worth, possessing a
dignified, pleasing manner, and other good qualities, which, with
her long experience as co-manager of the institution, admirably
fitted her for the position of superintendent; but she was a woman,
without a vote or political influence, and it was necessary that
"party debts" should be paid. She therefore continued her influence
for the good of the institution without public recognition until
1882, when she left to take charge of a private orphan asylum under
the management of ladies of Indianapolis.

[F.]

Miss Susan Fussell is the daughter of the late Dr. B. Fussell of
Philadelphia, to whom, with his estimable wife, women are indebted
as the founder of the first medical college for women in the United
States. At that period of our civil war, when women were admitted
to the hospitals as nurses, Miss Fussell was at her brother's home
at Pendleton, Indiana. She immediately volunteered her services,
and was assigned to duty by the Indiana sanitary commission in the
military hospitals in Louisville, Kentucky, where she served
faithfully until the close of the war, giving the bloom of her
youth to her country without hope of reward other than that which
comes to all as the result of self-sacrificing devotion to the
cause of humanity.

At the close of the war she returned to Philadelphia, but learning
soon that an effort was being made to induce the State of Indiana
to provide a home for the soldiers' orphans, she again offered her
services in any useful capacity in that work. A benevolent
gentleman of Indianapolis who had been most urgent in calling the
attention of the officers of the State to their duty in that
matter, finding that there was no hope, offered to furnish Miss
Fussell with the money necessary to clothe, rear, educate and care
for a family of ten orphans of soldiers, and bring them up to
maturity, if she would furnish the motherly love, the years of hard
labor and self-sacrifice, the sleepless nights and endless patience
needed for the work. After a few day