Mary was born on 3 Feb 1818 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Her parents were Elias Phinney and Catherine Bartlett Phinney.[1]
Mary attended Lexington Academy and Smith's Academy. Her father died in 1849. When the family sold the farm, she helped pay the bills by working at the Manchester Mills cotton mill in New Hampshire as a designer of textile patterns.
In 1850 Mary is living in Lexington with her mother Catherine, her siblings and some boarders.
Name | Sex | Age | Occupation | Birth Place |
Catherine Phinney | F | 58 | Massachusetts | |
Mary Phinney | F | 29 | Massachusetts | |
Jane Phinney | F | 27 | Massachusetts | |
George Phinney | M | 26 | yeoman | Massachusetts |
Alice Phinney | F | 23 | Massachusetts | |
Charlotte Sweet | F | 28 | Massachusetts | |
Charlotte B W Sweet | F | 7 | Massachusetts | |
Bridget Delvin | F | 14 | Ireland | |
Stanwood Phinney | M | 30 | laborer | Maine |
Lafayette Scholfield | M | 28 | laborer | Maine |
Joseph Brackett | M | 24 | laborer | Maine |
James Ryan | M | 24 | laborer | Ireland |
Also working at the mills as a chemist was Baron Gustav Adolph Von Olnhausen. Mary and Gustave were married on 1 May 1858 in Massachusetts. [3] When Gustav died just two years later on 13 Sep 1860, she moved to Illinois to help her brother's family of four children and an invalid wife.
From the outbreak of the Civil War, Alexandria, Virginia was occupied by the Union Army and became the home of several hospitals. Mary, ready support the soldiers any way she could, went to Boston and petitioned Dorothea Dix, Superintendent of Union Army Nurses, for a position. Arriving in Alexandria on 12 Aug 1862, shortly after the Battle of Cedar Mountain, she was assigned to the Mansion House Hospital, the largest of the city hospitals. Dorothea Dix warned her that the surgeon in charge did not want women nurses around and would do everything he could to force her to leave. She worked day and night caring for hundreds of soldiers, was belittled by the surgeons, and slept on the floor next to patients. Mary stuck it out and remained until she was transferred about a year later to the Mansfield General Hospital in Morehead City, North Carolina. Both hospitals were typical of most hospitals of the time, there was insufficient help, the surgeons were unskilled, and there was no organization to adequately serve the thousands of sick and wounded.
She was discharged in August 1865 and returned to Illinois help raise her brother's (G.P. Phinney) children.
Name | Sex | Age | Occupation | Birth Place |
G P Phinney | M | 37 | farmer | Massachusetts |
B Franklin Phinney | F | 16 | Illinois | |
Mary B Phinney | F | 14 | Illinois | |
John B Phinney | M | 12 | Illinois | |
R A Phinney | M | 9 | Illinois | |
George Phinney | M | 5 | Illinois | |
Mary Von Olnhausen | F | 50 | keeping house | Massachusetts |
Noah Williams | M | 29 | Ohio |
Mary applied for a passport on 10 Oct 1870. [5]
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Mary was moved to serve her husband's native land. She volunteered as a nurse with the Prussian Army, and served in field hospitals in Meung and Vendome, France. She was awarded the Cross of Merit for Women and Girls in 1873 from Kaiser Wilhelm I for her service.
When she returned from Europe in January 1874 she was the Superintendent of Nurses Training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and two years as the Administrator of the Maternity Asylum at Staten Island, New York.
By 1880, Mary is widowed and living in Boston teaching embroidery. In 1900 she is one of many artist lodgers at the Grundmann Studios on Clarendon Street. She designed and created embroideries.
Name | Sex | Age | Status | Relation | Occupation | Birth Place |
Henry S Wilde | M | 32 | Married | Head | janitor | Massachusetts |
Florence E Wilde | F | 30 | Married | Wife | England | |
Russell H Wilde | M | 1 | Single | Son | Massachusetts | |
James H Emmerton | M | 53 | Widowed | Lodger | artist | Massachusetts |
Mary Von Olenhausen | F | 82 | Widowed | Lodger | artist | Massachusetts |
Emily W Philbrook | F | 65 | Single | Lodger | artist | Maine |
Jan A Oliver | F | 40 | Single | Lodger | artist | Massachusetts |
Mary N Richardson | F | 41 | Single | Lodger | artist | Maine |
Zelpha M Plaisted | F | 49 | Single | Lodger | artist | Maine |
Josephine Chatman | F | Single | Lodger | architect | ||
William Claus | M | 38 | Single | Lodger | artist | Germany |
Jane M Hammond | F | 38 | Single | Lodger | sculpture | Massachusetts |
Mercy A Bailey | F | 60 | Single | Lodger | art teacher | Massachusetts |
Schofield | F | Widowed | Lodger | artist | ||
Schofield | F | Single | Lodger | artist |
She was granted a military pension in 1888, and received a payment in 1899. [7]
Mary passed away in 1902 in Lexington, Middlesex, Massachusetts and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [1][8]
Her diaries and correspondence were compiled into the book "Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars", published in 1904.
Sources dispute her birth location. "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915, 1921-1924", from the State Archives, Boston indicates that Mary's birthplace was Charlestown, Massachusetts. Other sources, including Wikipedia, the History of American Women, Sketches of Representative Women of New England, and White Roses all say she was born in Lexington, Massachusetts.
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P > Phinney | V > Von Olnhausen > Mary Pratt (Phinney) Von Olnhausen
Categories: Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts | Charlestown, Massachusetts | Boston, Massachusetts | Nurses, United States Civil War | Prussia, Franco-Prussian War