Women of the Week

Reformer Zerelda Gray Wallace, who was born on August 6, 1817,  and army nurse Sarah Graham Young, who was born on August 9, 1830, are this week's Women of the Week.  

• To learn about them by viewing their items, please click on their images.  

• To read their biographical sketches in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page numbers to the left of their images.

Zerelda Gray Wallace was born in Millersburg, Bourbon County, Kentucky on August 6, 1817.  She was a temperance reformer, a woman suffragist, a public speaker, and an author.

Zerelda spent her youth in Millersburg and her teenage years in New Castle, Kentucky and Indianapolis, Indiana.  At age nineteen, she married Indiana's Lieutenant Governor, David Wallace, and became stepmother to his sons.  One of those sons was Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben Hur and used Zerelda as the model for the mother in the book.  David was elected to Congress the next year, and Zerelda spent some time in Washington, DC.

She was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, as well as the first President of Indiana's chapter, and Zerelda spoke frequently about the cause.  Also very involved in the suffrage movement, Zerelda was an active participant in the Equal Suffrage Society of Indianapolis.  Zerelda participated in many conventions, including the National Woman Suffrage Convention in 1880, the first International Convention of Women, the Suffrage Convention in 1887, and the Women's Council in 1888.  She also lectured about women's rights.  In addition, Zerelda was involved in missionary work for her church, the Central Christian Church.  Her publications included A Whole Humanity (1887), Mrs. Wallace on Equal Suffrage (1890), and Suggestions of a Line of Study: For Woman Suffrage Leagues and Good Citizenship Clubs (1891).

Zerelda embarked on a lengthy lecture tour in 1891.  After she became seriously ill during a lecture, Susan B. Anthony and Frances E. Willard were just two of many friends who inquired about her health. Fortunately, Zerelda recovered from this illness, as well as another in 1896. 

During her later years, Zerelda lived with family members in Cataract, Indiana.  She passed away on March 19, 1901.

Sarah Graham Young, an army nurse, was born near Ithaca, NY on August 9, 1830.   She married her first husband, Abel O. Palmer, in 1849 and had two children.  

By the time the Civil War started, Sarah was a widow.  Leaving her children with family members, Sarah worked as an army nurse.  She lived in Laurel, MD and Falls Church, VA.  Dorothea Lynde Dix was one of her colleagues during the war.  Sarah was nickmaned "Aunt Becky" by the soldiers and later wrote a book, The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life, about her Civil War experiences. 

In 1867, Sarah married David C. Young and moved to Des Moines, IA.  At the time of the Spanish-American War, Sarah was a founder of the Iowa Sanitary Commission.  

She passed away on April 6, 1908.