In making this arrangement the committee desire to express to you their high appreciation of your intelligence and self-sacrifice in distributing the funds placed in your hands, and their great sympathy with you in your long and painful illness, caused partly by the work which you did in their behalf. They recognize the great accuracy of your accounts, the large numbers of vouchers obtained by much labor, and the scrupulous care with which you have guarded the money entrusted to you. They wish you good health and a long life. I need not tell you, dear Miss Barton, how cordially I join in all good wishes for your health and happiness. May the Hospital pay your annuity until the next Centennial. Sincerely yours (Signed) EDMUND DWIGHT FOOTNOTES: [1] This was written shortly after the disastrous Chicago fire. CHAPTER III HER ILLNESS FOLLOWING THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR There are few letters and no diary during the winter of 1871 and 1872. Clara Barton was at Carlsruhe endeavoring to recover from nervous overstrain, and learning to write without much use of her eyes. She supposed that she had finished her work for French relief, but a letter from a Boston committee informed her that they still had funds for this purpose, but were not having good success in the matter of local distribution. They begged her to take charge of what remained of their working fund. Almost blinded though she was, she set out in winter and traversed again a route that had become familiar to her, through Mülhausen, Montbéliard, and Strassburg. Her work for women was still going on, and she gave it substantial encouragement and repeated her Christmas banquet of the preceding year in a New Year’s Eve banquet at Strassburg. She arranged for the continuation of the work in a way that did not pauperize the women. Then she returned to Carlsruhe and spent the remainder of the winter. Our chief knowledge of her oversight of these activities, as well as of her living arrangements during this period, is contained in a letter to her sister Sarah. She had been living in a hotel, but had taken lodgings of her own, had a little maid to wait on her, and was able to get a breakfast to her liking, which was beefsteak and baked potato, instead of the Continental breakfast of hard rolls and a gallon of coffee. The beefsteak for breakfast is interesting because Clara Barton ate comparatively little meat. She never, however, became a strict vegetarian. Even in her old age she now and then indulged in the luxury of a good, thick beefsteak; but this was exceptional. Her meals, as a rule, were severely frugal, and mostly vegetable. CARLSRUHE, Last Day of January, 1872 DEAR SISTER: