10 minute read
R&R: Re-enactors — Living History
(ABOVE) Museum Curator Chuck Mood (left) conducts drill exercises at a youth
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history camp at Camp Floyd State Park Museum in Fairfield, Utah. History camps for youth are held each summer of what camplife was like for soldiers with the 5th
Infantry during the Civil War. photo courtesy camp floyd state park (RIGHT / BOTTOM RIGHT) Vernette Anderson portraying a laundress accompanying the Mormon Battalion. Michael Anderson (left) and Jared Cornell, portraying Mormon Battalion soldiers at the Cove Fort Days celebration in Cove Fort, Utah. (BELOW)
Volunteer Michelle Tucker portrays an officer's wife at the Stagecoach Inn at Camp Floyd State Park in Fairfield, Utah.
photos courtesy loren r. webb
LIVING HISTORY
by Loren R. Webb and Michelle Bridges
for valor magazine
Trying to find how people did things in a certain way or what they wore during a particular period in time, is the challenge of historic re-enactors. Historic re-enactors say they do what they do because they want to preserve, for the public, that part of history they are attempting to portray through living history.
CIVIL WAR AT CAMP FLOYD
For instance, if you are trying to recreate the Civil War, figuring out how people held a weapon a specific way and the steps to loading that weapon is important, according to Chuck Mood, who works as a park ranger/curator at Camp Floyd State Park Museum. The park concentrates on interpreting the Utah War, the Pony Express and the Civil War, all of which play a part in the park’s history.
Mood regularly helps to put on History Camps for youths ages 8 to 11 years old at the park during the summer, as well as help facilitate and interpret the park’s history for visiting school groups throughout the year.
Mood says he gains a lot of personal satisfaction from doing historic re-enactments and being able to tell the community “something I learned” by portraying a composite of what a Utah Expedition soldier might have said or done.
“This is a period of time which always fascinated me and every now and then. You get a glimpse of what it might have been like (back then),” he said. “Sometimes, it involves experimental archaeology — trying to find how people did things certain ways. You figure out how people held guns a certain way and the steps to loading (a weapon). You don’t really get that from books.”
The hobby of re-enactment, particularly in the Civil War era, has developed and changed over the years. Mood said companies catering to historic re-enactment started with old work clothes and blue jeans and they offered limited types of muskets for sale. Over the years, the selection of products has widened and detailed reproductions from the cloth to the leather works are available.
“It can be an expensive hobby,” Mood said. “Depending on how much you want to do, costs can add up.”
EARLY AMERICAN LIFE
Michael E. Anderson, a member of the Utah Living History Association, said his organization tries to preserve American military history, specifically the muzzleloader time period which runs from the Revolutionary War to Civil War, about a 90-year period and also includes the War of 1812, Seminole Wars, the Texas Revolution, the Mexican American War, and the Utah War
Anderson said from his youth to the present, he has always been interested in history, especially since his father and grandfather both served in the military. From them, he gained an appreciation of family history, Latter-day Saints history and American history.
It also helped that he had great 5th and 6th-grade teachers, along with a high school teacher who got him interested in personal research. When visiting the LDS Church Museum of History and doing family research, he wondered how people made soap and how they made candles.
“One thing led to another and now I portray (historic reenactments) from 1775 to 1865, and that includes the Mormon Battalion, Nauvoo Legion,” Anderson said.
Anderson and Jared Cornell created the Utah Living History Association. Cornell is a military historian, gunsmith, historical re-enactor and a firearms expert.
Anderson said he has spent over 30 years studying original artifacts such as Civil War uniforms and has made every effort to use the same original fabric and original materials of that time period. “If you do historic re-enactment correctly, then you gain a greater understanding of what people of a particular time period went through,” he said. “For me, it’s all about keeping our history alive. Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”
THE LADIES TAKE A TURN
Michael Anderson’s wife, Vernette Anderson, is also involved in historic re-enactments. She first became interested while driving a horse carriage in downtown Salt Lake City in the 1980s.
Rather than just being a cowboy sitting on a French carriage in downtown Salt Lake City, Vernette Anderson decided it was all about packaging and showmanship, "so I ended up being dressed as an 18th-century driver, and it paid off." She said people were requesting her carriage rather than other drivers.
When she met her future husband, Michael Anderson, she was interested in his involvement in the Mormon Battalion. But she also wanted to know what it was like for a small number of women who accompanied the Mormon Battalion as laundresses, said Vernette Anderson.
She participates in a group called the Pioneer Heritage Company that focuses on keeping the civilian skill sets alive in connection with the Mormon Battalion.
One of those skill sets is to show what it was like to be a laundress. In that role, Vernette Anderson’s task was to launder and clean the clothes using a wooden washboard. The goal was to see if people of that day could make linen come out white. Vernette Anderson said she has made soap from lye and her personal experience, she said you begin to appreciate the ingredients in a modern bar of soap.
Michelle Tucker, who worked at Camp Floyd State Park as part of a college internship program during the 2019-2020 season, is another woman who enjoys historic re-enacting.
When she began homeschooling her children after moving to Lehi, she began sewing outfits for homeschooling historic events that she organized. When she visited Camp Floyd State Park, she picked up another idea to sew Civil War outfits in connection with her homeschooling curriculum.
While pursuing a Master’s degree in public history, Tucker decided to return to Camp Floyd State Park to learn how to do historic impressions. “To prepare for a role, I research and then I write up what I’m going to say in the first person,” Tucker said. “Then I try to find the accent of the character I’m going to do the impression of.”
Jorden Baker of the Friends of Camp Floyd State Park said the Friends group set up canvas tents during Memorial Day and Labor Day to teach about the Utah War and the Civil War from a civilian's perspective.
"Historic preservation is one of the big things we do," Baker said, and dressing up in that time period is beneficial to the public as well as the other volunteers to help them understand the time period. "Many of the portrayals are based on things that we are interested in our modern lives. We can then time travel with them and use them in our historical portrayals and interpretations."
20TH CENTURY CONFLICTS
The need to share stories is an innate part of life. Living history is a way to read, research and share stories that have shaped our world, our lives and our personalities. The Utah Military History Group collects artifacts and stories to share with the public, the experiences of service members from World War I through the Vietnam War.
Many of the group’s members started collecting because of their own family who served. Their first artifacts and stories came from talking to grandparents and great-grandparents, looking at black-and-white photographs and finding, hung up in back closets or stored in foot-lockers, uniforms and medals. After seeing and touching these tangible reminders of what had been, the questions came easily for members; the answers from the veterans, sometimes not so much.
“Research is key to living history,” said Alyse Almond, a group member and high school history teacher. “It fills in the void left by unanswered questions, or the questions that could not be asked.”
Living historians who focus on military history have the responsibility to accurately portray those veterans who served. Through research in the National Archives, unit histories, yearbooks, photographs, letters, personal journals and many other items, the group works hard to ensure that the stories being shared are as accurate as possible.
“When a family comes up to us at an event and starts to tell their stories about an uncle, a father or grandma who served, a bond is created between the past and present,” Almond said. “Often, some of the family has never heard these stories, and we, as living historians, get to be a tangible piece, a connection to the past.”
Most of the living History events the UMHG attend are educational. We wear original or accurate reproduction uniforms to represent a specific person or job at most events. We bring photographs, books, and other accouterments to best represent the stories we are telling. Uniforms, photographs, footlockers and even mess kits help stories to become real for those keeping the past alive for the future.
A native of St. George, Loren R. Webb has been a reporter in community journalism and a teacher of history and English in southern Utah and Nevada. Michelle Bridges is project editor for VALOR magazine and fills in where needed.
(TOP) A 10-man flight crew of a B-17 Bomber on the training run at Wendover Airfield during World War II. (ABOVE) Members of the Utah Military
History Group "crew up" for a flight crew portrait using the B-17 Bomber "Sentimental Journey"during a fly-in with the Commemorative Air Force Utah
Wing. (RIGHT) UMHG members Alyse Almond and Marrin Ricks portray two WASPs, co-pilot and pilot respectively, doing a preflight checklist. (BELOW)
UMHG members act as a Navy air crew during the Warriors over the Wastach
UTAH LIVING HISTORY ASSOCIATION
Interpreters or re-enactors who are dedicated to the preservation of American Military history during the “Muzzleloader Period” of 1775 -1865. In addition to learning by traditional methods, they're dedicated to learning by doing, or actually “living” experiences of our ancestors. facebook.com/pg/UtahLHA
PIONEER HERITAGE COMPANY UTAH
Pioneer heritage company is a volunteer group that rein acts what pioneer life was like. We strive for authenticity. We do several events a year. We love and strive to show our passion for some of history.
facebook.com/groups/3260315410669737
FRIENDS OF CAMP FLOYD CIVILIAN LIVING HISTORY
A group of history buffs that support Camp Floyd State Park Museum. Community of local families who want to be informed of activities and programs, learn about the colorful history of Johnston's Army and find more about the history of Fairfield area.
facebook.com/friendsofcampfloyd
airshow at Hill Field. photos courtesy utah militaryhistory group
UTAH MILITARY HISTORY GROUP
UMHG believes the most effective way to teach history is through all five senses. When one can handle "tangible history," the lessons of the past escape the realm of the textbook and become reality. Our preservation of history is for the benefit of all. facebook.com/utahmhg
FREEDOM VEHICLES
Association promotes patriotism and protects freedom by helping the youth and the public develop a passion for history, education and to honor the active military and veterans who served in the U.S. military. We strive to truly understand freedom.
