Elizabeth Dodge

I bet you thought I missed a day.
It was MLK/Inauguration Day.  I took the day off.  I'm not that obsessed with my work.
No, really, I'm not.
Really.

Pension File: 1001137, 562603
P.O.: San Bernadino, CA
Service: Chester St. Hospital, Philadelphia; Sanitary Lodge, Philadelphia
Applied: 1891
Status: Accepted (Special Act)

One of the chapters of my thesis is dedicated solely to the WRC's efforts to get the Army Nurses' Pension Act passed.  There isn't a great deal out there in the way of WRC records, but every once in a while I find a letter in one of my pension files from Sarah Fuller or Kate Sherwood (members of the Pension Committee), and they are enormously helpful.  When I found the WRC letter in Dodge's file though I was in the middle of finishing the database and I came back to it over break when I was working on the ANPA chapter.
Dodge came from a military family.  Her father, Samuel Rinker, served in the Continental Navy, and then in the War of 1812.  Her brother also served in the Navy, though the records aren't clear which war he served in.  Dodge herself apparently served as a nurse in New Orleans during the Mexican War.  Of course, she couldn't stay out of the next major conflict.  During the winter of 1861-62, Dodge worked at the Volunteer Refreshment Saloon in Philadelphia, funded by the wealthier citizens of Philadelphia to feed troops marching through the city on their way to the front.  She then served eleven months at Chester Street Hospital in Philadelphia, from May 21, 1864, to mid April, 1865, when she was offered a position as matron of the Sanitary Lodge in that city, a position which she took and held until August.  When this hospital closed, Dodge got a position as matron at the Naval Asylum Hospital.
The position must not have lasted long, because Dodge moved out to Sacramento, California shortly after--the dates are very unclear, but she was certainly out there by 1873, when her husband, Seymour Dodge, passed (I haven't been able to puzzle out when they were married exactly, but it was sometime in the 1850s).  Dodge managed to find odd jobs nursing to keep herself financially afloat, but in 1890 she reached out to her local WRC Post for help.
I don't know why, but California's WRC posts were always very enthusiastic in supporting former nurses.  They certainly rallied around Dodge.  They filled out a WRC "Army Nurse Blank" for her--part of the WRC's campaign to get nurses pensioned was to investigate the claims themselves and then put select information on a formal blank: dates of muster and discharge, state of health, pecuniary circumstances, endorsed by, etc.--and had Sarah Fuller, Secretary of the National Pension and Relief Committee, write to Rep. Samuel Yoder to ask him to introduce Dodge's bill.  Fuller and Yoder were both more concerned with the state of the ANPA at the time (it was due up in the House, and Fuller wanted it passed in time for the WRC National Convention), but Yoder eventually put Dodge's bill forward, and it passed on March 3, 1891.
There's little else in the file.  Dodge entered the St. Agnew Asylum in San Francisco in 1904, which necessitated a great deal of paper work--her pension now went to her legal guardian, Daniel McGinley, rather than her.  Dodge died just after the Great Earthquake of San Francisco, possibly from injuries sustained during the quake, on April 21, 1906.