Mt. Pleasant Soldiers Aid Association - Nov. 1861

JOCELYN, PENN, AMBLER, PRICE, ARMS, TIFFANY, HOLMES

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 4/21/2024 at 19:21:02

MR. EDITOR:

The Ladies of the “Mt. Pleasant Soldiers’ Aid Association”, desire to express through your columns, their deep sense of gratitude to Mr. Jocelyn for his very interesting benefit lecture of Monday evening last, which besides giving us a pleasant and instructive entertainment, brought into our treasury, exclusive of expenses, the neat sum of Twenty-seven dollars and forty cents. We also wish to return our thanks to Messrs. Penn & Ambler for the gratuitous use of their beautiful new Hall; to the Band who discoursed their excellent music on the occasion; and to Mr. Price for his assistance in lighting the room.

And now, Mr. Editor, having been permitted to discharge this, we would trespass a little further in an appeal to the patriotic, the humane and benevolent of our country. We learn that there is a great scarcity of many necessary articles for the comfort of the sick, in the Hospitals of the Western Department. Lists of material needed for hospital purposes have been from time to time published, and of which will be most acceptable, for the purposes therein named. There is scarcely a family not able to find something that can be spared. We would earnestly entreat each and all to seek the necessary channel, to cause these articles to bless some sick or suffering soldier.

Among the articles now much wanted are woolen socks, and material to be wrought into them. Also, partly worn linen, to be made into lint, for dressing wounds. Any of these articles forwarded to our Corresponding Secretary (Mrs. Dr. Arms,) or any member of our Society, will be thankfully received and appropriated.

We would suggest that the Ladies of the several villages, and densely populated neighborhoods, associate for more effectively collecting and providing such material as most needed.

Now is the time, dear sister, to show our faith by our works. It is not ours to rally to the tented field, or participate in the strife of blood, but ours it is to minister to the wants of the sick and suffering, then let us each and all put our hands to the work and do what we may to assist in making the lives of our sick and wounded soldiers as tolerable as possible. Let them feel that we are all ready to labor with and for them – that we are willing to make sacrifices for the cause in which they are engaged. – then will they go to battle when the hour comes with renewed devotion and courage.

Mrs. Tiffany, Pres’t.
Mrs. S.M.J. Holmes, Sec’y.

Mt. Pleasant, Nov 15th, 1861.

(“The Home Journal”, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Saturday, November 16, 1861, page 2).