Sadler, H: Mother George

Excerpt from Mother George: Fort Wayne's Angel of Mercy

The original text as published in the Fort Wayne journal -gazet TE has been subjected to some editorial emendation in the interest of brevity; some rhetorical changes have brought the text in harmony with practices employed in other publications of this library.

Mrs. Eliza E. George, known to Indiana Civil War soldiers as Mother George, accompanied Hoosier troops through battles and skirmishes for two and a half years before falling victim to an attack of typhoid fever at Wilmington, North Carolina. She died just one month to the day after Lee's surrender at Appo mattox Courthouse, Virginia. Eliza George never knew of her fame. It came after her death, but it served to make her name a household word a century ago.

Mrs. George was the first and perhaps the only woman to be interred in a local cemetery with full military honors a tribute which she fully deserved. She was buried at Lindenwood in the family plot of Fort Wayne's other great Civil War hero, Col. Sion S. Bass who had fallen at the Battle of Shiloh. The Sanitary Commission of Indiana erected a granite monument to her memory. Today, this weathered old shaft is the only visible marker for her grave a dozen yards away. Maps of Fort Wayne in 1874 and 1895 show that a street was named for her. Only the marker on the wall above a paint store on Broadway remains to recall her existence. The Last Train from Atlanta, by a.a. Hoehling, published in 1958, is one of a dozen or more historical works which re fers to Mother George from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nothing else remains of the fame of this great lady. A diligent search of newspaper microfilm files, dusty old city files, and church records, revealed only one brief reference to her. The records of The First Methodist Church of Fort Wayne, then known as Berry Street Church, prove that she was a full member ofthat congregation. A single line entry states that Elizabeth George, widow, died of the Great Fever in North Carolina. The Lindenwood burial records refer to her as George.

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