One of the great privileges—and joys—of my life has been my affiliation with the Civil War Trust and, before that, with one of its predecessor organizations, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites. As a human being, mother, grandmother, and citizen, there are few things more important to me than leaving this legacy of preservation behind when I am gone and providing for the work’s continuation.
I became interested in the Civil War, as did many other people, when I was young. I read a kids’ biography of Clara Barton when I was eleven or twelve; Clara came under fire during the battle of Antietam, and I still remember that book’s description of “the dark, quiet valley of Antietam Creek” on the night before the battle. As I look back, I know that’s when I was “hooked.” My fascination with that battle has endured and grown, as has my interest in the Civil War.
I became involved with the modern battlefield preservation movement in the late 1980s when, as a history teacher and graduate student, I saw the grave threat posed to Antietam by the possibility of commercial development at the historic Grove Farm, scene of the iconic Alexander Gardner photograph of Abraham Lincoln and Gen. George McClellan taken near Sharpsburg soon after the battle.
One of the great privileges—and joys—of my life has been my affiliation with the Civil War Trust (now a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and, before that, with one of its predecessor organizations, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites. I was an early member of the APCWS, whose board I joined in the late 1990s.
As a human being, mother, grandmother, and citizen, there are few things more important to me than leaving this legacy of preservation behind when I am gone and providing for the work’s continuation.