WIDOWS SENT AS NURSES TO THE CRIMEA

THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES, in their constant care for wounded and crippled soldiers, Graciously deign to order: that sixty humanitarian widows from the St.-Petersburg and Moscow Widows' Homes (under the Department for EMPRESS MARIA'S Institutions), to care for the sick and wounded in military hospitals, be sent to the Crimea. These widows are to be sent in coaches belonging to the Postal Department, in six transport columns, which will leave from Moscow each day one after the other, beginning on 15 November.
On 13 November the widows of the Widows' Home here [in St. Petersburg] left for Moscow. By IMPERIAL wish the departing widows are entrusted to the care and attention of the Commander-in-Chief in the Crimea, General-Adjutant Prince Menshikov.

(Russkii Invalid No. 264, 25 November 1854. [Reprinting from Morskoi Sbornik])

Tula, 27 November - From 18 through 23 November the Compassionate Widows [Serdobol'nyya Vdovy] of the Department for EMPRESS MARIA'S Institutions passed through the city of Tula on their way to the Crimea to care for the sick in military hospitals, and starting on the 25th, there departed after them more nursing Sisters, of the Charitable Association of the Exaltation of the Cross [Krestovozdvizhenskaya Obshchina], under the patronage of HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUCHESS HELEN PAVLOVNA. In sincere mutual regard for the Christian work of these Widows and Sisters, the Tula Merchant Association wished to give them a suitable welcome to the city, so to this end City Magistrate Petr Ivanovich Dobrynin, along with members of the City Council, set off for the postal inn where the Widows and Sisters were staying, and presented all of them with a joyous treat of tea, sweets, and a sumptuous dinner, which ended with toasts to the health of THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES and the entire August House, and at the departure of the Widows and Sisters from the city, each coach was specially given several pounds of the best Tula gingerbread.

(Russkii Invalid No. 271, 3 December 1854.)

****************

Translated by Mark Conrad, 1997.