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ADELINE BLANCHARD TYLER AND HER COMPANIONSAdeline Blanchard Tyler (1805-1875) was the first Episcopal deaconess. Along with Caroline (Carrie) Elizabeth Guild (1827-1880), Eveline Black (1825-1875), and Catherine Minard (1837-1917), she was admitted to the office of deaconess on the 4th of November 1856. They provided nursing care, religious and practical education, material support, and advocacy at the newly established St. Andrew's Infirmary in Baltimore. They cared for men, women, and children, Black and white, from near and far, and would become known as the United Deaconesses of Maryland. The need for experienced nurses and hospital superintendents during the Civil War led Adeline to the Camden Street Hospital in Baltimore, where she ministered to both Union and Confederate soldiers with an evenhandedness that sparked accusations by some of being "a Rebel sympathizer." Shortly thereafter, at the request of Dorothea Dix, she was placed in charge of the military hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania, where her colleagues included volunteer nurses from Maine and Massachusetts. They often had 1,000 men under their care. By early 1863 Adeline was in charge of the military hospital at the former Naval Academy in Annapolis, again with members of the nursing cohort who had served at Chester. She died on January 9, 1875. |