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Nancy “Nannie”
McCullough
Orme
Nancy
“Nannie” McCullough Orme was born in October 1834 (according to 1900
census
information) in McLean
County. In 1853, she married William Ward Orme. Between 1854 and 1860, the couple had four
children: William, Bernadine, Lucy, and
Edward.
Almost everything we know
about Nannie comes to us through
the letters her husband wrote to her during their frequent and long
separations. It is safe to say that Nannie
was a faithful,
loving, and supportive wife. It’s too
bad that we have none of the letters she wrote to him, but her
qualities are
often revealed in his letters to her.
After the difficult birth
of their first child, William sent
his young wife to Washington,
D.C. to stay for two
months with
his family so that she could recuperate.
While there, she visited President Pierce, probably more
than once, and may
have served as personal representative for her ambitious husband. William was obviously proud of her. By the time Nannie returned to Bloomington, she
had
received 32 letters from her husband.
In August 1862, Col. Orme
and the 94th Illinois
Voluntary Infantry left Bloomington
to fight in the Civil War, and his letter-writing to his wife resumed. When William desired a promotion to General,
he
wrote to Nannie of his request that David Davis and Leonard Swett to
use their
influence with Lincoln
in his cause. He knew that Lincoln thought
well of
him, and he suggested to Nannie that she could also lobby for him with
Davis
and Swett, even instructing her on what to say.
This Nannie surely did, as she often showed his letters to
Davis, Swett,
and other friends.
Nannie would certainly
have also feared for her husband’s
personal safety and must have expressed those fears to him. In one letter he wrote, “You don’t want me to
get back without going through a big battle, do you?”
When he finally did get into the Battle of
Prairie Grove, he wrote the details in a long letter knowing he would
have an
anxious and appreciative audience, not only in his wife but also in the
friends
with whom she would share the news.
It was shortly after this
that Nannie learned of her
father’s death in battle in Mississippi. This was devastating news to the family, and
William was able to get home for awhile.
Then came his letters
from Vicksburg
and New Orleans
where his health rapidly deteriorated.
When he was assigned to Camp
Douglas in Chicago,
Nannie traveled there frequently to care for him. Sometimes
she took some of the children with
her. When he left Chicago and came home, it was surely
through
her tender ministrations that he recovered sufficiently to take another
government position. Again, his health
declined and he expressed his wish to die at home with his wife’s
“sweet words
of hope and consolation” in his ear. And
that’s what happened.
Nannie was widowed at age
32. She was more fortunate than most women
in
that she was financially secure. It
would be ten years before she remarried, this time to Dr. Dunbar Dyson,
an old
friend of William’s. Dr. Dyson died in
1893. Nannie lived out her life watching
her children grow, marry, and succeed in life.
She died in May 1912.
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