Ten Down, A Couple Hundred To Go

Today was my experimental day, trying to get a rhythm for how to approach my research.  Here is what I've learned:

• It is possible to put in all my pension requests for the day first thing in the morning, so I don't have to drop everything and run down twenty minutes before a pull time to frantically fill out forms.  In fact, I can drop them off the night before and they'll put the slips in the next morning.  This is a very good thing.
• Originally, I planned to photocopy some of the longer, hand-written pieces in the files, and photograph everything else.  That is, until I discovered the Archives let you scan everything to a USB drive...for a price.  I experimented with all three, and found I like having photographs of everything (all to be transcribed later in the day), and then scanning the longer pieces.
• Because these are government papers, there are dozens of forms.  Forms are my friends.  Type up a rough copy of the form, print out multiple copies, and fill out as needed for each pensioner.  Lets me spend more time actually soaking in the information instead of going immediately on to the next document as well as saving me a little extra money on copying.

I put in pull requests for 16 nurses today, and got 13 back.  One pension is still housed with Veteran Affairs, one they were unable to locate, and the third belongs to someone completely different.  Still, 13 was more than enough.  I'll be playing catch-up tomorrow morning once I fill out my pull forms.  Tomorrow I'll have a more detailed profile on one of the nurses to put up, but for now I'll give you a sampling of the women I found: an escaped slave turned laundress, the wife of an army chaplain, a "Mother", and a Sanitary Commission worker.  Now guess: who received a pension, and who was denied?