Rogers, Marjorie Ann 1823-1897

ROGERS, GRAHAM, SUTHERLAND, FISHER, DEXTER

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 5/21/2010 at 08:44:46

The Grinnell Herald (Grinnell, Iowa) May 25, 1897

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE ENDED.

Mrs. Marjorie Ann Graham Rogers was born at Kortright, Delaware county, New York, March 25, 1823. Was one of the pioneers of Illinois at the time of her marriage. They spoke of settling in Chicago, but decided it would never be much of a town. She came to Tama county, Iowa, in 1859, living in Crystal and Toledo with her husband, Samuel C. Rogers, a graduate of Buffalo University of Medicine, who served nearly from the first of the war as assistant surgeon, 30th Iowa, accompanied Sherman on his march to the sea and died in Boston, Mass. in 1885. Mrs. Rogers worked on the sanitary commission all through the war, always helping soldiers, orphans and widows. Lived in Marshalltown two years; in Boston ten years, connected there with the "New England Hospital for Women and Children." Came west again, living for a few years in Toledo; then elected matron of Benedict Home, Des Moines, which position she held for nearly three years; then matron of Cottage Hospital of that city for a time; planned and really founded the "Christian Home for Self-Supporting Women." Ever since the war she has been an active member of the W.R.C., having published the "Experiences of a Woman Who Stayed at Home During the War," in the Grand Army Advocate. Moved to Kansas City in 1892 with her daughter, Mrs. B.E. Fisher, with whom she always made her home; came to Grinnell in 1894, where she really spent the only quiet home life of the past twenty-five years. Even now she had plans to talk up a hopsital in Grinnell. Her whole motive in all the years her children can remember of her was to help some one or to plan a home for others. A few years ago on reading of the Jewish Home for the Aged in Chicago, she proposed to Mr. Abram Slimmer of Waverly, "A Home in Iowa." The result of a friendly corresponence covering these years being the great gift of $50,000 given by him (under conditions) to the home now established in Des Moines. Mrs. Rogers was a great reader, quiet and modest; she said during her last sickness never to say of her, "She hath done what she could," for she had lost many opportunities. She was an earnest christian since her girlhood, her early training by Scotch Presbyterian parents proving she could live her profession. Her children are Mrs. Hibbard Sutherland of Gilman, Iowa; Frank Rogers of Pueblo, Colorado; Mrs. B.E. Fisher of Grinnell, Iowa; and Mrs. W.A. Dexter of Toledo, Iowa.