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Emeline Rose: The Life of a Maine Nurse, in Her Own Words
Celebrating Women’s History Month often means seeking out individuals who were not recognized in their time – the countless women who did great work without great recognition.
Emeline Rose’s life will be celebrated in the upcoming exhibit Beyond the Postcard: Stories of the Maine Experience. Visit the museum after it reopens on October 24, 2026 to see her words on the page.
Emeline (Proctor) Rose (1817-1880) was a Maine nurse whose career took her across the country, including service in a military hospital during the Civil War. Decades of diary entries, held by the Maine State Museum, provide an intimate view of her life and legacy.
Emeline’s early life in Leeds and Dixfield, Maine, prepared her for a role as a caregiver. She helped her siblings and neighbors during their illnesses and pregnancies. Before her 30th birthday, five of her ten siblings had died of infectious diseases, and she worked hard to care for her surviving brothers and sisters throughout her life. As a baptized Methodist, she believed acts of service were spiritually important.
Like thousands of rural New England women, Emeline spent a few years working in a Massachusetts textile mill. While there, she had a spiritual awakening and was baptized into the Methodist church, which valued acts of service.
Emeline married Nelson Rose, a shoemaker, at age 34. She was widowed at age 44. After Nelson’s death, diphtheria broke out in Dixfield and Emeline traveled from house to house nursing sick children.
In 1863, Emeline learned that her brother, Uriah Proctor, was shot in the thigh during the Battle of Grand Gulf. She rushed to the U.S. Army’s Gayoso Hospital in Memphis Tennessee. Once he had recovered, she stayed to work there as a nurse.
Emeline returned to Maine and Boston to work as a nurse for hire. She valued her independence, rejecting three marriage proposals. As the years went by, her job wore her down. At age 63, she overtaxed herself helping a series of patients and had a stroke. Emeline died in June 1880, leaving behind a community that had benefited from decades of her skilled care.
Emeline was a member of the Canton Grange. After her death the Grange passed a memorial resolution and sent this copy to her family.
The resolution sums up her life as follows:
“Left early a widow she became a careful and patient nurse, leaving all she went…to care for the wounded and dying during the late Rebellion faithfully serving the interests of humanity [h]er country and her God as hospital nurse returning chastened in spirit she became a noble member of our order and has now gone to enjoy her reward in glory.”
–Memorial Resolution for Emeline Rose, Canton, Maine, July 31, 1880