Note 9 — Chapter XIII · SOUTHERN BATTLEFIELDS.

One of the nurses who did splendid service in the South was Sister Mary Gabriel. She was the daughter of the late Henry W. and Barbara Kraft, of Philadelphia. When little more than a child she entered the novitiate at Emmittsburg, Md., an action which even then had been delayed a year in deference to her father’s expressed wish. At the end of two years she was professed on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 1842.

Her first mission was the Charity Hospital, New Orleans, where she entered upon what proved to be a long life of devotion to the poor sick. Soon after her arrival she contracted the dreaded yellow fever while nursing stricken patients, and her life was despaired of. She recovered, however, and was again at the post of danger in the plague-stricken city. During the war she labored among the dying soldiers at Mobile and Holly Springs. Twice in later years she visited Philadelphia, the second visit following retirement from active duty. It was during this second visit and while she was staying at St. Joseph’s Hospital that she celebrated her golden jubilee. Her superiors finding her so full of vigor and zeal, again assigned her to active duty, and at her own request she was returned to the Charity Hospital, New Orleans. This devoted Sister passed to her reward about the fall of 1896.