In an early period of the civil war this heroic woman left her home at Griggsville, Illinois, came to St. Louis and offered her services to the Western Sanitary Commission as a nurse in the hospitals. She was already known as a person of excellent Christian character, of education and refinement, of real practical ability, the widow of a deceased clergyman, and full of the spirit of kindness and patriotic sympathy towards our brave soldiers in the field. Her services were gladly accepted, and she entered at once upon her duties as a nurse in the Fifth Street Hospital at St. Louis, which was in charge of the excellent Dr. John T. Hodgen, an eminent surgeon of that city.

For nearly two years Mrs. Starr served as nurse in this hospital, having charge of one of the special diet kitchens, and ministering with her own hands to the sick and wounded inmates. In these services the great kindness of her manners, the cheerful and hopeful spirit that animated her, the words of sympathy and encouragement she gave her patients, and the efficiency and excellence of everything she did won for her a large measure of esteem and confidence, and made her a favorite nurse with the authorities of the hospital, and with the sick and wounded, who received her ministrations and care. Small in stature, it was wonderful how much labor she was able to accomplish, and how she was sustained by a soul full of noble purposes and undoubting faith.

In the autumn of 1863 Mrs. Starr was needed by the Western Sanitary Commission to take the position of Matron of the Soldiers' Home at Memphis, to have charge of the domestic arrangements of the institution, and to extend a true hospitality to the many invalid soldiers going on furlough to their homes or returning to the hospitals, or to their regiments, passing through Memphis on their way. The number thus entertained sometimes reached as high as three hundred and fifty in one day. The average daily number for two years and a half was one hundred and six. When the Home was first opened, and before it was much known, the first guests were brought in by Mrs. Governor Harvey, of Wisconsin, who found them wandering in the streets, sadly in need of a kind friend to give them assistance and care. Sometimes the Superintendent, Mr. O. E. Waters, would have from twenty to thirty discharged, furloughed and invalid soldiers to aid, in collecting their pay, procuring transportation, many of whom he found lying on the hard pavements in the streets and on the bluff near the steamboat landing, in a helpless condition, with no friend to assist them. The object of the Soldiers' Home was to take care of such, give them food and lodging without charge, make them welcome while they stayed, and send them rejoicing on their way.

In the internal management of this institution, and in the kind hospitality extended to the soldiers Mrs. Starr was doing a congenial work. For two years she filled this position with great fidelity and success, and to the highest satisfaction of those who placed her here, and of all who were the guests of the Home. At the end of this service, on the closing of the Home, the Superintendent in his final report to the Western Sanitary Commission, makes this acknowledgment of her services:

"It would not only be improper but unjust, not to speak of the faithfulness and hearty co-operation of the excellent and much esteemed Matron, Mrs. Lucy E. Starr. Her mission has been full of trials and discouragements, yet she has patiently and uncomplainingly struggled through them all; and during my frequent absences she has cheerfully assumed the entire responsibility of the Home. Her Christian forbearance and deep devotion to the cause of humanity have won the admiration of all who have come within the sphere of her labors."

On the closing of the Soldiers' Home, Mrs. Starr became connected with an institution for the care of suffering refugees and freedmen at Memphis, under the patronage of the Freedmen's Aid Commission of Cincinnati, Ohio. She took a great interest in the thousands of this class of destitute people who had congregated in the vicinity of Memphis; visited them for weeks almost daily; and in the language of Mr. Waters' report, "administered to the sick with her own hands, going from pallet to pallet, giving nourishing food and medicines to many helpless and friendless beings."

Thus she continued to be a worker for the suffering soldiers of the Union army from the beginning to the end of the war, and when peace had come, devoted herself to the poor and suffering refugees and freedmen, whom the war had driven from their homes and reduced to misery and want. With a wonderful fortitude, endurance and heroism she persevered in her faithfulness to the end, and through the future of her life on earth and in heaven, those whom she has comforted and relieved of their sorrows and distresses will constitute for her a crown of rejoicing, and their tears of gratitude will be the brightest jewels in her diadem.