Beneath Her Petticoats: Remembering Emily C. Haines

The text below titled “A Celebration of the Life of Emily C. Tucker Haines Harrison” was written by Michael Halfman, who has worked with sincerity, compassion, and love over the past several years making sure that Emily received the military headstone and honor that she deserves.

Michael read his celebration of Emily’s life at her dedication ceremony that he organized, which occurred November 1, 2025 at Highland Cemetery, 117 years after Emily’s death. I am posting his words here below with his permission.

A Celebration of the Life of Emily C. Tucker Haines Harrison by Michael Halfman

Emily C. Tucker was a Mayflower descendant born in Vermont on October 21, 1825. [She was the] granddaughter of two Patriots of the Revolutionary War including one who participated in the Boston Tea Party and brought home spilled tea leaves in his moccasins to prove it. She was the daughter of a War of 1812 veteran and spouse of one from the War with Mexico whom she met and married September 17, 1847 after relocating with her father to Ohio.

As a single mother — [whether] by death, divorce or abandonment, we’re not sure — she answered Mother Bickerdyke’s call and became a nurse and kitchen supervisor for the Union cause in the War Between the States. Emily also smuggled espionage material across the lines in her petticoats to her one-time Ohio neighbor and later general, William Tecumseh Sherman.

The Kansas Optimist, Jamestown, KS, Aug 27, 1908

Only after struggling for five weeks with smallpox, contracted during her nursing service, was she made to stand down and fall out from her duties. She left Ohio to homestead in Kansas near Salina in 1864 but was run off her land by Indians who felt they had a prior claim to it. She later said she was thankful, in the genteel language of the day, not to have been outraged in the process.

The Butler County Democrat, El Dorado, KS, Sep 29, 1899

On January 4, 1869, she married an English-born Butler County farmer and magistrate, William Harrison. (Note: William is buried at Chelsea Cemetery.) She filed for divorce from him in 1888. The divorce was not granted although she was granted alimony. The collection of it, however, became problematic. Emily thought it was somehow not right for the judge to have forewarned his colleague, her husband, to remove his assets from the county and thus out of her reach. She took her case all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court. The Court stood by its gender and professional mates and declined to intervene.

Source

Again destitute, she moved to the Mother Bickerdyke Home for indigent nurses established by the Women’s Relief Corps at Ellsworth, Kansas in 1897.

Emily herself was at various times reported to have been head of the WRC and Ladies of the GAR in Kansas. Her connection through Mother Bickerdyke to General Sherman and his corps and later army commander successor John A. Logan perhaps assisted her in finding respite in these later years. She filed for a pension in 1892 under the Army Nurses Act. Clara Barton wrote on her behalf and by special act of Congress she was granted a $12 a month invalid pension in 1901.

The Walnut Valley Times, El Dorado, KS, Feb 28, 1901

Emily died in 1908. Her son, William Waldo Haines, had her remains brought here and put in his plot, where he joined her just four years later. [Waldo], born in Ohio on August 26, 1849, become the first head of the 22 member Wichita Metropolitan Police Force in 1877. A grandson and daughter-in-law lie either side of her; her son and another grandson are at her feet. Many more of her descendants across multiple generations are with her elsewhere in Highland. One later Wichita descendant used her lineage to join the DAR and … she has relatives along the west coast as well as in the Midwest.

Reminiscences of Early Days in Ottawa County

Even though she’s buried in Wichita, Emily never lived in Wichita. She did live nearby when she was married to William Harrison, and she lived in other areas of Kansas throughout her adult life.

In 1907, Emily wrote her version of the early days in Ottawa County, Kansas for the Kansas State Historical Society’s annual publication. You can read the original here, or a transcription here.