Lizzie Aiken

2A01:4B00:8E02:4100:E062:BCD6:D05C:E0BC: Copyediting

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'''Lizzie Aiken''' (1817-1906) was a nurse in the [[American Civil War]], who was widely known as “Aunt Lizzie”.<ref></ref>

==Early years==
Eliza N Atherton,<ref></ref> known as “Lizzie”, was born in the town of [[Auburn, New York]] on March 24, 1817. The daughter of Steadman Atherton (1791-1856) and Deborah Ward. Both her parents were from [[Cavendish, Vermont]].

In 1826, at the age of nine, the family returned to the [[Atherton Farmstead]] in Cavendish, which was owned by her grandfather, Jonathan Atherton.

When she was sixteen, her mother became ill and Lizzie spent the next four years caring for her. Once her mother’s health improved, she enrolled in the New England Academy in Cavendish.

==Personal==
She married Cyrus Aiken at the age of twenty and they relocated to Illinois. She lost all four of her young boys to [[cholera]],<ref></ref> then her sister Roxana in 1852 and her father in 1856. When her husband became mentally ill, she worked as a domestic nurse to help defray his medical expenses and help support her mother, who was living in Vermont. <ref></ref>

==American Civil War==

She enlisted as a nurse with the [[6th Illinois Cavalry Regiment]] at the beginning of the American Civil War. She nursed soldiers in the sick tents near [[Peoria, Illinois]].<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref>

In November 1861, Aiken accompanied the 6th Illinois Cavalry to [[Shawnee Town]], on the [[Ohio River]]. Her comfort and care resulted in the nickname “Aunt Lizzie.” At first she worked for no pay but eventually received $12 per month from the [[Union Army]].

In 1862, she wrote to a friend:

She would later care for Union soldiers at Ovington Hospital in [[Memphis, Tennessee]]. She was friends with Mary A. "Mother" Sturges.

In 1864, the ladies of the Peoria Loyal League raised the money so she could visit her mother in Cavendish for three weeks.

Aiken became sick and returned to Peoria where she was nursed back to health. In 1867, she joined the Second Baptist Church and worked as missionary until her death in 1906.

==Later years==

She was personally known to every U.S. President from [[Abraham Lincoln]] (16th President), through to [[Grover Cleveland]] (who served as the 22nd President). Some biographers have referred to Aiken as America’s own “Florence Nightingale”.

==Death==
Aiken died on January 17 1906, aged 88. She is buried at [[Rosehill Cemetery]] in [[Chicago, Illinois]].

==Ancestry==
Her family came from Cavendish, Vermont. The Atherton family's ancestry is from [[Lancashire]], England. Her ancestral home, the '''Atherton Farmstead''', is a historic farm located at 31 Greenbush Road in Cavendish. Built in 1785, it is one of the oldest in the rural community, and is its oldest known surviving tavern house. It was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 2002.

==Further reading==
*'''The Story of Aunt Lizzie Aiken''' by Mrs Galusha Anderson. Published by Jansen, McClurg & Company, Chicago in 1880. <ref></ref>

==References==


==External links==
*[https://ift.tt/30IItla Cavendish Historical Society]

[[Category:1817 births]]
[[Category:1906 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century American people]]
[[Category:Nurses from Illinois]][[Category:Female wartime nurses]]
[[Category:Nursing in the United States]]

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