When Sarah Plank finally passed away in 1926, she was eighty-five and had outlived her husband, John Edward Plank, and three of her twelve children. With that in mind, take some time to consider her obituary. Consider what takes up the most real estate on the page and what is absent.

At the time of Sarah’s death, the Battle of Gettysburg was sixty-three years in the past, and yet, it was the lede of the story and half of the story. The descendant of German forefathers, the wife of a prominent Democrat, notable in town for her own works and influence, the mother of twelve children . . . according to the obituary, the signal moment of her life were the two-and-a-half weeks in which her home was a field hospital and in which she personally ministered to the enemy’s wounded.

If you search newspaper databases, the name Sarah Plank comes up in every generation starting at Gettysburg down through today. Some have Plank as a maiden name; others have it as their last name. Yes, the name Sarah is both biblical and common, and yet, the renown of Sarah for those few weeks coupled with her extensive descendant network have undoubtedly yielded the homage throughout the decades.

It is nearly impossible to say more about Sarah Plank. Newspapers briefly mentioned a family reunion she attended as well as her golden anniversary she celebrated with her husband. And then, we have her obituary, which is written in the tone of a person acknowledging that everyone reading knew Sarah Plank.

For what is publicly available, that is all we have. A woman with twelve children—were those three weeks really the signal event of her life? In many ways, Sarah is emblematic of the challenge found researching the women of the antebellum and postbellum eras—they are most readily accessed through their husbands, through brief moments in high conflict, through the children they bore. Unless a journal or family remembrance is made public, we can know something of their deeds in brief flashes . . . and little else.