Mother Bickerdyke Memorial Cemetery - Ellsworth, Kansas
Mother Bickerdyke Memorial Cemetery lies on a hill overlooking Ellsworth, Kansas. The small cemetery is the final resting place of 32 women who were Civil War nurses, widows, or daughters of Civil War veterans. The women died from 1902 - 1919 and were residents of the nearby Mother Bickerdyke Home.
The home was established by the Woman's Relief Corps, which was the women's auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1897, the WRC named this facility the Mother Bickerdyke Home and Hospital.
Mary A. "Mother" Bickerdyke was a nurse who established more than 300 Union field hospitals to assist sick and wounded soldiers in the Civil War. She was at 19 battles and searched for wounded soldiers on the battlefield. At night, she would carry a lantern into the disputed area between the two armies and retrieve wounded soldiers. The enlisted soldiers who were her patients referred to her as "Mother" Bickerdyke. Following the war, she became an attorney to help Civil War veterans with legal issues, Mary Bickerdyke moved to Kansas where she helped settle over 300 families, and made daily rounds nursing and advocating for sick veterans.
Although three individual stones have been added, the burials in Bickerdyke Memorial Cemetery are marked with identical stones which contain only crosses. In 1961, the State of Kansas added a larger stone with the names of all the women interred.
The cemetery is also known as "Bickerdyke Home Cemetery,"
copyright 2019 by Keith Stokes