(Photo)
Though plagued by severe shortages of
supplies and
medicine, and having to battle with
doctors who did
not approve of
women's roles in hospitals, Pember
labored
unceasingly for the rest of the war to
care for sick
and wounded soldiers.
In response to criticism that hospital
horrors
should not be seen by ladies, Pember
replied, "In
the midst of suffering
and death, hoping with those almost
beyond hope in
this world; praying by the bedside of
the lonely and
heartstricken;
closing the eyes of boys hardly old
enough to
realize man's sorrows, much less suffer
man's fierce
hate, a woman must
soar beyond the conventional modesty
considered
correct under different
circumstances."
Pember stayed with the hospital and her
patients
after the fall of Richmond and until the
facility
was taken over by
federal authorities. In 1879 she
published her
memoirs, A Southern Woman's
Story, in which
she vividly
describes the suffering and the spirit
of her
patients.
Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, the well
educated
daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from
Charleston,
S.C., was
widowed from her Bostonian husband, who
died of
tuberculosis in July 1861. She returned
to her
family, who were living
in Marietta, Ga. Pember wanted to serve
the
Confederate cause and used her
friendship with the
wife of Secretary of
War George W. Randolph to obtain an
appointment. On
December 1, 1862, Pember became chief
matron of the
2d division
of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital.