Mary A. Aston

Mary A. Aston (1836 – March 27, 1913) served as an army nurse during the American Civil War. After the war, she was active in several national and Philadelphia organizations supporting veterans' causes.

Mary A. Aston
Mary A. Aston, from a 1910 publication
Born1836 (1836)
Pennsylvania
Died (aged 77)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Resting placeNorthwood Cemetery
OccupationNurse during the American Civil War

Early life

Mary A. Aston was born in 1836, in Pennsylvania.[1]

Career

Aston served in the Philadelphia Volunteer Corps of Army Nurses from 1862 to 1865. "My husband was sickly and unable to go to war and we decided that one of us at any rate should do something for our country," she explained many years later.[2] She worked at the Citizens' Volunteer Hospital in Philadelphia,[3] alongside surgeon R. S. Kenderdine.[4] She became deaf after a cannon exploded close to her.[1]

Later in life Aston was financial secretary of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War. She was also an officer in the Memorial Association of Philadelphia, a women's organization that raised funds for headstones and other monuments for Union Army veterans.[5] She was a member of the Philadelphia Army Nurses' Association.[6]

Personal life

Aston's husband, Samuel Aston, died during the war, in August 1864.[6] She died in 1913, aged 77 years, in Philadelphia.[7]

References
  1. Logan, Mrs John A. (1912). The Part Taken by Women in American History. Perry-Nalle publishing Company. pp. 363. Mary A. Aston nurse Philadelphia.
  2. "They Nursed Wounded Soldiers in the Sixties". The Philadelphia Inquirer. May 1, 1898. p. 27. Retrieved September 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Veterans Who Will Be At the G.A.R. Celebration Owe Their Lives to the Heroic Self-Sacrifice of these Women Nurses". The Times. August 20, 1899. p. 19. Retrieved October 17, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Women Who Saw War". Monongahela Valley Republican. August 17, 1899. p. 1. Retrieved October 17, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Appeal for Funds". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 24: 275. June 1900.
  6. "Mary A. Aston". The Buffalo Commercial. August 24, 1897. p. 7. Retrieved September 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Aston". The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 30, 1913. p. 14. Retrieved October 17, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
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