Oh, Holy Birthday

On July, 4,1863 a poor single mother herself born of an African mother and Irish father on St, Valentine’s Day, 1813 -Lydia Hamilton Smith embarked on a selfless heroic mission. Her husband had died years before leaving her to raise their children alone.

Without being asked and using a rented horse and wagon  she travelled to nearby Gettysburg and began caring for the thousands of wounded abandoned there by both sides after the battle on July 1-3. They now lay in the soaking rains and then scorching sun on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Without discrimination she tended those left to die with just four dozen medical personnel to help and only half of those qualified surgeons.

She stopped at local farms begging food and clothing to aid those as she found them,. When the donations dried up, she began spending her own very modest savings accumulated pennies at a time over years of work. Each day, with her wagon heaped high, she turned toward the hospitals; and when she reached them, weary from miles of travel, she delivered those she’d saved and distributed the articles she had brought.

Of the 165,000 combatants involved there were 45 to 50,000 killed and wounded including only one civilian Miss Jenny Wade killed when a bullet pierced the door of her aunt’s house in Gettysburg, Jenny had gone there during the battle to be sure her aunt was OK.

Learning of Lydia’s heroic efforts her employer Congressman Stevens of nearby Lancaster, Pa. who died in 1868 left her $5,000 in his will. She purchased Steven’s home in Lancaster and a large boarding house across from the prestigious Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. She spent most of her time operating the establishment and earned a reputation as an astute businesswoman, but she returned often to Lancaster. Lydia Smith died on Valentine’s Day 1884 in Washington, D.C., and was buried in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Lancaster, where she had long been a member.

Certain days that people are born or die on are symbolic. To die on one’s birthday is believed by some to be a gift from God, telling the whole world that God was pleased with the efforts of that person. It should be noticed that Lydia died on her birthday… Yes, on a pagan holiday, but nonetheless still a sign from God that maybe he was pleased with this modest, unselfish, and anonymous woman.