Rachel A. Allen

Pension File: 377901
PO: Warsaw, IL, and later Anthony, KS
Service: Keokuk GH
Applied: 1880
Final Status: Accepted, 1893
Rachel A. Allen applied for a pension on June 17, 1880--twelve years before the Army Nurses Pension Act was passed.  She claimed that she served as a nurse at the Estes House Hospital in Keokuk, Iowa from the fall of 1862 until the spring of 1864 and was now permanently disabled and unable to make a living.  In her 'Declaration for an Original Invalid Pension,' Allen claimed a pension for "blood poisoning, chronic diarrhea and sequence chronic (hepatitis), liver disease and disease of the heart and lungs," all as a result of blood poisoning and diarrhea contracted during her service.
Ouch.
My first thought was that some of this, particularly the heart and lungs, could be attributed to age.  If someone paid me a quarter for every time a 75 year old nurse put down general disability as the reason why she couldn't work, I'd never have to pay for copying.  The Declaration, however, also listed physical attributes.  When this was written (1880), Allen was 45 years old.
Her pension finally came before the review board two years later--at which point they rejected her claim on the grounds that "the claimant was a civil employee and not enlisted in the military service of the U.S. and there is no law allowing pensions for disease contracted while acting as nurse."
That seems to be a common problem: if the applicant was not actually enlisted in the army as a nurse, there was no legal precedent, and the Pension Committee was extremely hesitant to broaden the rules.  Allen, apparently, was a gutsy person, or desperate for funds.  After the Pension Act in '92, she applied again, and this time she had Backup (yes, the capital 'B' is on purpose).  If you don't know the name of Annie Wittenmyer, shame on you.  During the war, Wittenmyer organized diet kitchens in Northern hospitals, and probably saved hundreds of lives by actually feeding the men something other than hardtack and salted pork. After the war, not only was she a member of the WRC (Woman's Relief Corps, which was one of the groups supporting the Pension Act), she served as attorney for dozens of would-be pensioners.  I don't know how she did it, but Allen got Wittenmyer to act as her attorney.  The pair of them got their hands on half a dozen affidavits from men she'd treated as well as surgeons and staff on duty at the hospital (including Esther J. Boone, another woman on my list!); and, somehow, the Pension Bureau managed to get its act together and find records indicating Allen had, in fact, worked at Estes House (the record keeping in these places! Sheesh!).  Allen got her pension: $12 a month, the going rate for nurses pensions.
Allen never married--a fact emphasized in the affidavits and applications.  Eventually, as age caught up with her, she moved in with her nephew, F. O. Allen, and his wife.  She died in March, 1913, in Anthony, Kansas.  The remainder of the papers in the pension file document her nephew's application for reimbursement for the care he'd given his aunt.  He got $14.50; he'd asked for $115.