Phoebe yates pember biography of rory

She served as the matron of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital, reportedly the largest military hospital in the world in the s. The fourth of seven children, she was raised in a wealthy and socially prominent family; her father was a successful merchant while her mother was a popular actress. One of Pember's sisters, Eugenia Yates Levy Phillips, would later be imprisoned — twice — for her support of the Confederate cause.

Exemplifying the way in which wealth enabled some antebellum Jewish families to gain full community acceptance, the Levy family moved among Charleston's elite until a series of financial setbacks sent them to Savannah, Georgia, in the late s. Pember apparently received some formal schooling before her marriage to Bostonian Thomas Pember, a non-Jew.

Phoebe yates pember biography of rory: A Southern Woman's Story: in large

By late , however, she was a childless widow, living with her parents in Marietta, Georgia, where they had fled to escape the ravages of war. Unhappy at home, Pember accepted an invitation to serve as the matron of Richmond's Chimborazo Hospital. She reported for duty in December, A sprawling institution on the outskirts of the city, Chimborazo was reportedly the largest military hospital in the world in the s.

By the end of the Civil War, the hospital had cared for some 76, patients. Pember's job was to head up one of the facility's five divisions.