On November 18, 1915, the Confederate Women’s Home opened in Fayetteville. Mrs. Hunter G. Smith proposed establishment of a home in North Carolina for Confederate widows and daughters some years earlier during the 1908 convention of the North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).
In 1913, the legislature granted $10,000 for building purposes and $5,000 per year for maintenance. The UDC accepted responsibility for the home’s operation. To live in the home a woman had to be sixty-five or older; a wife, daughter, or widow of a Confederate veteran; and in need. She also had to sign her property and pension over to the state.
Originally the home was scheduled to close in 1950, but it twice received ten-year reprieves. By 1981, only seven women lived in the house and it was not practical to keep it open. Today, 65 women are buried in a cemetery on the grounds. Its counterpart institution, the Confederate Soldiers Home, for veterans, operated in Raleigh from 1891 to 1938.
Other related resources:
- The Civil War on NCpedia
- Highway marker in Cumberland County honoring the Confederate Women’s Home
- North Carolina and the Civil War from the N.C. Museum of History
- The North Carolina Sesquicentennial Committee
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