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At the beautiful suburban home of her daughter, Mrs. N. H. Reeve, near Bristol, Tenn., on August 20, 1919 there passed from earth the soul of a brave and noble woman, Mrs. LeGrand Sexton, of Washington, D. C., who as a young girl of nineteen years during the war between the North and South was a volunteer nurse of sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. Mrs. Sexton's name was then Kate Korff. She was born in Georgetown, D. C., January 29, 1842, of sturdy Dutch stock on her father's side and pure American on her mother's. Her parents were Herman G. and Ellen Korff. Mr. Korff was a native of Holland, who came to America in the early thirties and engaged in the mercantile business in Georgetown.

After leaving her home at the call of the Southland for nurses. Miss Korff served the Confederate cause in every way possible.

Dr. Price, in his "History of Methodism," Volume V., states: "Being in deep sympathy with the South, she came through the lines to Richmond, Va., and nursed in the Richmond hospitals." And it was here that she nursed the wounded warriors of Seven Pines. While at Staunton, Va., she cared for the defeated and discouraged survivors of Gettysburg. She had also ministered to the injured in the battle of Manassas. She was a veritable Florence Nightingale in the fever-haunted hospital at Atlanta, Ga., where were brought the stricken ones of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, and was untiring in her efforts to save the lives of soldiers, to soothe their last moments, and to comfort their bereaved relatives. Here is a story of her service in this respect, written by herself not many months before she passed away:

"A young Virginian (I cannot remember his name) whom I nursed in the 1st Georgia Hospital died of typhoid fever. Mr. Randolph Axson (an uncle of President Wilson's first wife), who was then a clerk in the 1st Georgia Hospital, called me one morning to his office and told me that an old lady and her daughter were there to see about this young soldier, the son of the former. I exclaimed 'He is dead!' As I spoke these words the two, whom I had not seen sitting on the steps at the doorway of the hospital, fell fainting. Mr. Axson and I carried them to couches, and he administered to them until they recovered from the faint, then I entertained the sorrowing mother and sister for two days in my room, as they were anxious that I should show them even the cot upon which their loved one had died. I gave them the brave young soldier's clothes, which I had carefully put away.

"The mother on her return to Chesterfield, Va., sent to Mr. Axson and me many dozens of eggs and pounds of butter to be used in the hospital for our sick charges."

Not only as a nurse did Miss Korff serve here country, but, quoting from Dr. Price's work again, "she was also in the Treasury Department, as can be seen by here name appearing on a series of Confederate notes." The Confederate Treasury was located at Columbia, S. C., and while Miss Korff was performing the duties of this position, to which she had been appointed by Alexander Stephens, Sherman was making his march to the sea. She then refugeed from Columbia to Richmond, Va., and, among her varied war experiences, was present at St. Paul's Church, in Richmond, seated just across the aisle from President Davis, when a courier came in from General Lee with the message that he would surrender to General Grant in a few hours. Soon thereafter she was compelled to witness the triumphal entry of the Northern forces and capital of the Confederacy in flames.

After the surrender Miss Korff returned home for a brief stay and then accepted a position as teacher in the school at Jeffersonville, Southwest Virginia. Not long afterwards, as the result of a pretty romance, she married Mr. LeGrand Sexton, who owned a country place at Chatham Hill. Here they lived happily many years until his death. Mrs. Sexton came later to Washington to rear and educate her young family. She was the devoted mother of six children of her own and two stepchildren.

Mrs. Sexton belonged to the Southern Relief Society and the Robert E. Lee Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She frequently attended the Confederate Reunions and greatly enjoyed the occasions. She was deeply religious and of a charitale and tolerant disposition to all denominations and creeds. She possessed a multitude of friends not only in the national capital, where she lived for twenty-four years, but wherever she went she was wont to make and keep friends. Here death has left a void in there hearts that cannot be filled, but her memory remains, making the world better that she had lived. It is pleasant to think that in heaven the spirits of the fallen heroes of the Southern cause, a portion of the choir invisible, whose last moments Kate Korff had soothed and comforted, awaited her coming and welcomed her amid their shining hosts.