According to newspaper accounts at the time of her death, Abbredalah Kaloss was born in
Tunis in 1815 as a
triplet. Kaloss' father, Abdallah Kaloss, who was also a triplet, is said to have been a prominent merchant; her mother was of German descent. Kaloss received her
Doctor of Medicine degree from the
University of Heidelberg in the mid-1830s. During her college education, Kaloss
dressed as a man, since the institution did not then admit women. It was during this period that she met her fiancé, Enrique (William) Kamoo, a graduate of the
University of Cairo. According to one account, Kaloss was educated in
Germany at the suggestion of
United States Navy Commodore
Matthew C. Perry, a family friend; according to another version, Perry met her after her return to Tunisia from Germany. In 1838 Kaloss is said to have sailed with Commodore Perry to
New Orleans, where she was reunited with Kamoo, who was working there as a doctor. Commodore Perry gave Kaloss away at her 1840 wedding to Kamoo. The couple established a hospital for
black people in New Orleans. They would reportedly twice have triplets. However, only one of their children, a son named William, would live to adulthood. Enrique Kamoo died around 1859; William, the couple's last child, was
posthumous, born in early 1860. According to one account, Enrique was shot to death during an argument about
abolitionism; according to another account, he died of
smallpox contracted during an outbreak. When the
American Civil War began, Kamoo desired to support the
Union cause. Leaving her son, William, with friends, she traveled north. In 1862 Kamoo reportedly joined the
Union Army in male disguise, using the name "Tommy Kamoo", first as a nurse and then as a
drummer boy. Her sex was discovered after she was wounded in the nose at the
Battle of Gettysburg; she then served as an army nurse for the rest of the war. Due to racial segregation she was only allowed to care for black soldiers. After the war Kamoo reunited with her son in New Orleans. They moved to
New York City, where Kamoo opened a practice. In 1875 Kamoo moved from New York to
Boston, where she established a practice as a
dermatologist in the city's
South End. In 1885 she joined the congregation of the People's Temple in Boston. Kamoo's son died of
appendicitis in 1901. With her health weakened by multiple falls, Kamoo died in her seat while attending an evening service at the People's Temple on February 21, 1904, at the age of 89. She and her son are buried at Boston's
Mount Hope Cemetery. According to newspaper reports of her death, her 114-year-old father was living in
Los Angeles with her two triplet brothers when she died. ==Veracity of claims==