After Frances Wilson Huard returned from the long journey to escape the Battle of the Marne that she described in My Home in the Field of Honour, she devoted herself to using her large home in Villiers, France as a hospital for wounded soldiers.
My Home in the Field of Mercy describes the challenges of providing medical care during wartime. It is also a good account of how people selflessly adapted to wartime conditions and generously offered whatever they had to give, both large and small.
The book ends with a journey that Huard took to the front lines near Soissons, France to get some tobacco that would help ease the pain of the soldiers in her hospital home. This trip turned into a descriptive account of life near the front lines.
Huard obtained the tobacco from Madame Marcherez, a courageous resident of Soissons who helped care for the civilian population, even after the Germans invaded Soissons. Marcherez was one of those quiet heroines whose deeds often don't get included in general history books, but whose memory is preserved in specialized accounts like My Home in the Field of Mercy.
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