Page 129 - Arkansas Confederate Women

WORK OF MRS. JAMES M. KELLER, OF

HOT SPRINGS.

By J. M. Lucey.

The life of Mrs. Keller became entwined in the war record

of the Confederate soldiers of Arkansas in various ways, due
largely to the fact that her husband, Dr. James M. Keller, was
medical director of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the
Confederacy. In the first years of the war she frequently ac-

companied him on the expeditions, which his official duties re-
quired him to make. In this way, Mrs. Keller became known
to the Arkansas divisions of the army and her womanly influ-
ence cast a charm over many dismal scenes of camp life.

In the Confederate hospitals of Memphis, which she was

chiefly instrumental in founding, many Arkansas soldiers were

nursed back to life and restored to the ranks of the Southern

army. From the close of the war in 1865, to the time of her
death at Hot Springs, April 8, 1906, she was a most enthusi-

astic and successful worker and organizer of Chapters of the
Daughters of the Confederacy.

Mrs. Keller, a native of Kentucky, and a member of

one of the most prominent families of the bluegrass region, was
born, August 31, 1831, in Jefferson county, not far from Louis-
ville. She was a graduate of Nazareth Academy, Nelson county

—Her maiden name was Sallie Phillips. When about twenty

years of age, she married Dr. James M. Keller, and in 1901, the
golden jubilee of their wedding was happily celebrated at Hoi

Springs, Ark.

In the progress of the Civil war, Mrs. Keller, finding that
her stay in Memphis might continue for a considerable length
of time through force of circumstances, set to work to improve
the Overton Hotel hospital, and then organized the old State

hospital, where the Dominican Sisters of the Catholic church
were placed in charge. It is not possible in a brief sketch to

describe the wonderful work of this noble woman in these and