Old Times in Dixie Land

Caroline Elizabeth Merrick (1825-1908) was born in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. She came from a solidly southern background. Like other southern women, Merrick married at a young age, she was fifteen when she married Edwin T. Merrick, a district judge of the Florida Parishes. She was a motivated activist for women's rights and temperance. During the Civil war Merrick was forced to make many voyages on the river to get supplies. She nursed the sick and wounded of both the Confederate and Federal armies, as well as providing nursing care for her family and slaves on the plantation. For her efforts, Merrick was made vice president of the Woman Suffrage Association of Louisiana. She also was a president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Louisiana for ten years. In her autobiography; Old Times in Dixie Land: A Southern Matron's Memories (1901), she describes the restraints placed on her life because of her sex.