Hannah Judkins Starbird

Hannah Elizabeth Judkins Starbird (August 10, 1832 – February 15, 1922) served as an army nurse in the American Civil War. Later she was an officer of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War.

Hannah Judkins Starbird
A younger white woman, wearing a portrait brooch at her throat.
Hannah Judkins Starbird, from an 1895 publication.
Born
Hannah Elizabeth Judkins

August 10, 1832
Skowhegan, Maine
DiedFebruary 15, 1922
Los Angeles, California

Early life

Hannah Judkins was born August 10, 1832, in Skowhegan, Maine, the daughter of Levi Judkins and Hannah Emery Judkins. Her grandfather, John Emery, fought in the American Revolutionary War.[1]

Career
An older white woman wearing a large portrait brooch at her throat, a high lace collar and a lace shawl.
Hannah Judkins Starbird, from a 1910 publication. Note that she is wearing the same portrait brooch as above.

Judkins was a schoolteacher in Maine for nine years before the war.[1][2] She became an army nurse in 1864, working at Carver Hospital in Washington, D.C. and St. John's College Hospital in Annapolis, Maryland until the war's end in 1865.[3] Her patients at St. John's were Union Army men, newly released from Confederate prisons. She wrote, "Pen cannot describe the first boat-load of half-starved, half-clothed, thin, emaciated forms whose feet, tied up in rags, left footprints of blood as they marched along to be washed and dressed for the wards. In many cases their minds were demented, and they could give no information as to friends or home, and died in that condition, their graves being marked 'Unknown'."[1][4]

In 1910 she was elected junior vice-president of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War.[5] In 1913, she was section president of the Army Nurses' Association in California and Arizona.[6]

Personal life

Hannah Judkins married lawyer and Union Army veteran Solomon Bates Starbird in 1866. They lived in Nebraska and Colorado, and had two sons, Edwin P. and Harold B. (Harry).[7] Both sons graduated from the Colorado School of Mines.[6] Solomon Starbird died in 1889.[8] Hannah Judkins Starbird lived in Nevada[5] and California[9] in her later years, and died on February 15, 1922, aged 89 years, in Los Angeles, California. Her gravesite is at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. In 1998, she was one of the nurses featured in an exhibit at the Bangor Historical Society on "Maine Women in the Civil War".[10]

References
  1. "Army Nurses Share Honors with Old Soldiers". Nevada State Journal. June 11, 1913. p. 2. Retrieved September 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Sudlow, Lynda L. (2000). A Vast Army of Women: Maine's Uncounted Forces in the American Civil War. Thomas Publications. p. 126. ISBN 9781577470496.
  3. Logan, Mrs John A. (1912). The Part Taken by Women in American History. Perry-Nalle publishing Company. pp. 360–361. Hannah Judkins Starbird.
  4. Mary A. Gardner Holland, Our Army Nurses: Interesting sketches, addresses, and photographs of nearly one hundred of the noble women who served in hospitals and on battlefields during our civil war (Boston, Mass., B. Wilkins & Co. 1895): 422-423.
  5. "Officers are Elected by Army Nurses' Association". The Salt Lake Herald. August 13, 1909. p. 2. Retrieved September 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Porter, Florence Collins; Trask, Helen Brown (1913). Maine Men and Women in Southern California: A Volume Regarding the Lives of Maine Men and Women of Note and Substantial Achievement, as Well as Those of a Younger Generation Whose Careers are Certain, Yet Still in the Making. Kingsley, Mason & Collins. p. 53.
  7. "Accounting of His Mother's Estate Sought". The Los Angeles Times. September 28, 1922. p. 27. Retrieved September 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Starbird Family Papers, James S. Schoff Civil War Collection, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan
  9. "Army Nurses Convene". The Los Angeles Times. September 14, 1912. p. 29. Retrieved September 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. "Angels of Mercy: Bangor exhibit highlights women of the Civil War". Bangor Daily News. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
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