How the Reenacting Thing Got Started

While I was still in high school my sister spent a lot of her time at the home of her best friend. Our parents were divorced and she didn't want to be at the house and her way of dealing, I guess, was to run off and pretend to be someone else's child. These friends were long time French and Indian War Reenactors. If you don't know what a reenactor is get a dictionary and look it up. Reenactors are regular every day people who like history and for some reason or other are drawn into the curious hobby of pretending to be a historical person. From making and wearing period correct clothing, making and using period correct guns, or other items, making and eating period correct dishes...there are any number of reasons for a reenactor to become what he or she becomes. It would make a lovely book some day I'm sure.
I was always fascinated by the reenactors in the museums. Go into any well rated museum and there should be a section somewhere that has a period looking building and a costumed reenactor there to take you briefly into the past and give you a hands-on first person look at the period in question. At the Cincinnati History Museum in Ohio there are several sections where a person can be lost in a time period. There is a pre-civil war log cabin, an early 20th century mock up of a river town with a paddle boat, and a few pieces of machinery from the famous steel plant. No matter which section you end up in, or really which museum, there is a peculiar smell that permeates the air. I've never been able to identify it. But if you get fake buildings, cobblestone and stagnate water together you might come close. I love that smell...and I'm also kind of intimidated by it.
But since the first day I saw a costumed reenactor kneading bread while telling us all about the curious life of a turn of the century house wife I've been in love with living history.
Fast forward again to high school and you'll understand why I was flabbergasted to hear the invitation to go to an F&I event in my little town.
It would be held on the private property of a man known only as Doc out in the boonies, and since the woman inviting me was an accomplished seamstress, she would provide me with the appropriate dress. There would be only reenactors at this event and as it was an end-of-the-season get together it was going to be cold. I didn't care! I was going to a reenactment!

I've begun to realize that when I was in my teens I looked a whole heck of a lot older than I was. Which would explain some of the trouble I got myself into.

We started at her house, putting on a chemise and layers of skirts and long stockings and a pretty satin coat, then the lacy cap over my hair as it was too short to put up, proper earrings, moccasins on my feet, a long cape to keep out the chill. I'm the one in yellow. My sister stands to the left. Because of her long hair and lovely features we decided that she was the Indian servant of the family and braided her hair in one long single plait.
We got to the event late in the evening hours. There was a French fort...yes...a fort, in this guy's back yard. Inside were half a dozen buildings including a working (and popular) tavern, guard house, chapel, etc. It smelled wonderfully of fall and rain and cool air and drifting smoke from hundreds of camp fires. There was an Indian village back in the woods somewhere with several standing structures including a long house. And in a field on the other side of a patch of woods the British and the Highlanders had camped in tents. If you're anything like me you should be hyperventilating by now. This is paradise! We started out at the French fort, met some friends of the family and met Mr. Footlander. Because of my red and curly hair there began a joke that I was the long lost, illegitimate daughter of Footlander and I was introduced as such much to the chagrin of his current girlfriend. Footlander thought it a hoot though and because of my new, special status, being the reunited daughter of the commander, I was given a special escort for the evening who deserted me shortly after I was guided to the British side.
We explored, we met and talked with anyone we could, we politely refused to drink the alcohol that was prevalent to my surprise, and ended the evening with the Indians listening to their stories and songs. One of them said that during the week he would say, "I'm an American Indian, who plays a white guy on weekdays."
I attended that event three times. During one evening I was captured by Indians while trying to return to the fort, which was entirely intentional. Dressing up pretty and being treated like a queen by all the men was nice, a pleasant change even, from my everyday existence. But I realized that my heart truly lay with the fighting men. I wanted to be where the guns were, where the fighting was, where the drama was!
Enter sophomore year of college. After graduating high school I day dreamed about getting a job as a living history persona. I tried to get a job at Roscoe Village in Ohio but they weren't hiring and who wanted a high school kid with a poor GPA and no experience? By sophomore year of college everything was falling apart anyway. I had been sick and depressed most of spring semester. I had no money and other than my summer job that would start in June I had no real future either. I stopped going to class and did as much as I could to avoid the responsibilities weighing down on me. After I spent spring break in bed unable to move I was desperate to get out and do something.
Somehow I heard about a Civil War Gun Show in Mansfield at the fairgrounds and decided that I wanted to go. On a bright, warm Saturday afternoon I found myself wandering around the fair grounds surrounded once again by the wonderful sights, smells and sounds of the past. Somewhere a fife and drum band was beating out Dixie and Bonnie Blue Flag and Glory, Glory Hallelujah. There were camp fires everywhere sending smoke into the wind and in the center of the concrete courtyard a Yankee Sergeant was shouting for strapping young men to join the cause, fight for the union, and announcing that each man would earn $13 dollars a month for joining. All the buildings were full to the brim with collectors and their collections, there were a few WWII reenactors but they were dwarfed by the collection of Civil War tents and men. At first all I saw were Yankees. But I had seen the movie Gettysburg, and I knew enough about the Civil War to know that these were the good guys. I quickly learned an important lesson.
If you are in modern in clothing you are as good as invisible to some reenactors. I wandered around the tents, shy and curious and excited and afraid, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and not a one of them invited me to learn about their hobby, or the historical period they represented. Yankee after Yankee saw right through me, sitting under their tent flies or around the fire, entirely engrossed in themselves and ignoring the public that had paid $5 a head to come see them.
As a reenactor I know this is easy to do. When you aren't required to be on your feet in the uncomfortable brogans and the warmth of the sun, or cleaning something, or cooking something, you want to sit and enjoy the peace and the laid back nature that the hobby provides. But...without the public there is no reenactment.
Anyway, I got fed up with being ignored, so I wondered over to where the Confederates had camped. Immediately I was addressed. "Come on into camp! Do you have any questions? Would you like to join?" (Pause....me? A girl? Join? And like in a uniform? Are you crazy? Heck Yes!) "Do you have a boyfriend who would also like to join?" (No, but I do have male friends that are interested in this sort of thing.) "Have you any reenacting experience?" (Sure, I did F&I.) "Have you ever handled a musket?" (Sure. Never mind the fact that it was only once, on a firing range, at a 4H camp that I wasn't even attending. But...I have marching experience, I did marching band for four years...) "Come back tomorrow and you can meet the Captain."
I went home buzzing like I'd had nothing but caffeine and sugar to eat for days. I had one thought in mind, fix up the blue dress!

Since attending the Red, White and Boom in Columbus the previous 4th of July, I begged my mother to make me a Civil War Day Dress. It was mostly wrong though. It had been made with the skirt too narrow at the bottom and since I had no corset or hoop I had been forced to get creative. I turned a three tiered skirt into a hoop skirt by sewing bent hangers into each tier, then bending and forcing and cramming until the hoop fit the confines of the skirt. It looked funny...

At the time I had short hair, which turned out to be great for playing a soldier but not so great when I put a dress on. Eventually I gave up on trying to be a girl and a boy at reenactments.

But hey I tried!

Other than the day that Dad took this photo I hadn't had the chance to wear the dress, so when I thought I saw an opportunity to impress the guys on Sunday I worked through the night hours making it work. I showed up Sunday afternoon with my bag and my dress, having driven myself to the event in the gray Pontiac Bonneville I owned (that's where the Bonneville applies to the story.) I payed my $5 bucks and proudly walked toward the Confederate camp through the sea of Yankees. Suddenly I had their attention. I got nods and tipped hats and after politely asking the Yankees if I could leave my purse in their camp I trotted over to the confederate camp.

I stood around proudly explaining where the day dress had come from, got more details on what to expect from the next event and met Noel, who lived near by and would be happy to offer me a ride to the small town on Lake Erie. I was essentially told, "If you bring a sleeping bag and a pair of shoes with you we'll give you a uniform, a tent, a gun and we'll see how you like it!"

(FAINT!) A get in free card for a one time chance at doing the thing I never thought I could do!! Be a Civil War Reenactor...and not as a female, but as a soldier! I knew enough about the era to know that there had been females hiding out in the ranks and serving, and I also knew the chance these guys were taking in offering me this deal. I took it.

A week or so later I drove the Bonneville up to Noel's house, briefly met his lovely wife and his dogs, then piled into his car and we were off.