The October 2016 meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday, October 13, at 7:00 pm.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.
The following is the Treasurer's report for the month of September:
Do you have a family member that
is interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership
in the Madison County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful
gift. A gift card will be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Life Membership $300.00
Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at [email protected],
about a gift membership.
On October 13, 2016, Mrs. Linda
Cox of Girard, Illinois, and Mrs. Dorothy Selinger of Palmyra,
Illinois, gave a program on the mourning practices during the
Civil War.
The ladies had worked together as teachers' aides and decided
to share their interests in the Civil War by creating programs
that would both inform and entertain. Through genealogical research,
they found that both had relatives who served in the Union Army.
Last year marked the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination
and funeral, which put the nation in a deep state of mourning,
and even more so for the era's women. "Deep mourning"
was the first stage of mourning for a woman, and it immediately
followed the death of a husband. Mourning clothes were expected
to be plain with little or no adornment. A woman, while in deep
mourning, would wear all black clothing and jewelry, including,
while out in public, gloves and a black veil over her face, explained
Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Selinger.
Linda and Dorothy, who wore dresses from the 1860s while they
talked about the period, met in the Virden school district 15
years ago. Each woman described in detail to the audience all
the layers of clothes they had on and what a woman in mourning
would be wearing, even on a sweltering afternoon when temperatures
reached over 90 degrees.
"Second-stage mourning" followed deep mourning. Full
mourning collars and cuffs were replaced by white, veils were
taken off, capes discarded, and jewelry of a wider variety was
worn.
Next came "half mourning" the last stage of a woman's
mourning ritual. It was during this period that the widow could
include the addition of lilac, lavender, violet, mauve, and grey.
She was no longer limited to just wearing black with only a touch
of white. The entire mourning period lasted a year and a day.
Linda has a degree in fashion design and Dorothy loves anything
to do with the Civil War. While Mrs. Cox made the dresses that
the pair wore during the presentation, Mrs. Selinger made cockades.
Mourners at the Lincoln funeral all had cockades. A cockade is
a rosette or knot of ribbons worn as a badge, usually on the hat
as part of a uniform, as a badge of office, or the like but also
worn as a sign of mourning. Most often extended family and friends
of the deceased wore mourning cockades as a public expression
of grief. These cockades were almost always black, but occasionally
they also included white, gold, red, or patriotic colors.
The wearing of cockades started during the Revolutionary War because
the Continental Army did not have enough money to buy uniforms.
Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Selinger presented an anecdote from the time
illustrating that during the Revolutionary War the British soldiers
would wear fancy cockades on their hats.
The era's slang expression for a cockade was "macaroni."
For the most part, American soldiers were short of money and they
were forced to use other identification rather than cockades on
their hats, so they would use animal tails, feathers, etc., thus
the "Yankee Doodle" song lyric: "Stuck a feather
in his hat and called it macaroni," is supposed to have come
from the slang term for cockade.
Both Linda and Dorothy had great grandfathers who fought for the
Union in the Civil War. Mrs. Cox's great grandfather was from
Rockbridge, Illinois, in Greene County, and was a prisoner at
the notorious Andersonville Prison where so many men died. Mrs.
Selinger's great grandfather was a lieutenant in the 122nd Cavalry
out of Macoupin County, who was killed in Tennessee by General
Nathan Bedford Forrest's men.
Both of these ladies are volunteers at the Lincoln home in Springfield,
Illinois, and perform for historical or genealogical societies,
women's clubs, and churches. Anyone interested in contacting them
can do so by calling 217-436-2571.
This presentation was well received and provoked many questions,
especially about the many items that the ladies brought to display.