Sarah Bloor

Pension File: 1140274, 867464
P.O: 408 Olive Street, Kansas City, Missouri
Service: Christian Commission Agent in Diet Kitchens at Gayoso Hospital
Applied: December 5, 1892
Status: Accepted

Sorry for the late post--midterm season just started here and I've been juggling that and writing my rough draft for the past few days.  Here's another random file for your perusal.

Sarah Bloor, born 1817, widowed by 1883, at least one sister.  She began her work midway through the war--one of the documents has her starting in 1863, but both she and the War Department records both claim she started in June, 1864.  Bloor worked in the special diet kitchen at Gayoso Hospital, Tennessee--diet kitchens were Annie Wittenmyer's creation (love this woman) and were essentially what they advertised themselves as: special diet kitchens which produced food specifically for hospital patients.  There are actually what appear to be menus of a sort in Bloor's file (shown right).  Has anyone ever seen things like this before?  It looks like the surgeon (or perhaps the nurse and surgeon) went through the ward, decided what each man needed for the day, and then sent the order off to the diet kitchens.  Some of the things on there look absolutely fantastic, like the chocolate for breakfast.  Others not so much.  One of the entrees is gelatine.
No thanks.
Anyway, Bloor's file doesn't reveal a mustering out date, or any information on her life between then and the time she applied for a pension--for once, Ancestry has yielded nothing other than her presence in the Kansas City directory, which is how I know she was widowed.  Bloor applied for her pension in December, 1892, and appointed local attorney J.A. Hays to take charge of her claim--remember, lawyers could not legally claim a fee for working on these cases.  These had to be pro bono.  By now, Bloor was 75 years old and suffering from old age and rheumatism, so well within the purview of the ANPA.
Isn't there always a catch?
The War Department records showed Bloor was attached to Gayoso in June, 1864, but didn't show a date of discharge, so they asked Bloor for original documents to prove the length of service.  So, she sent them the beautiful original documents I mentioned before.  Only problem was, the Bureau wasn't sure that Annie Wittenmyer had the authority to appoint nurses.  So off went a flurry of letters to the Surgeon General, who responded, "In view of the fact that the instructions from the Secretary of War and the Surgeon General to Medical Directors and surgeons in charge of General Hospitals conferred authority upon Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, Special Agent of the U.S. Christian Commission, "to employ such ladies as she might seem proper upon the request of U.S. surgeons," I am of the opinion that she was not thereby given any independent right to employ nurses." (That's a cue to me to double check the documents I have from the Bureau re Wittenmyer and the diet kitchen nurses, because I know at some point they make exceptions for diet nurses.)  But, the affidavit of Acting Assistant Surgeon Sharp did constitute proof of service under competent authority, so Bloor's claim was allowed.  Bloor continued drawing her pension until her death in January, 1897 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.