John King plays Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, during a Civil War re-enactment at Burton Century Village. (Mara Morrison — The News-Herald)
This weekend at Burton Century Village, a Civil War Encampment event allowed audience members to find history in every nook and cranny of the museum.
The Civil War re-enactment at 14653 E. Park St. took place May 25 and is set to happen again May 26. Stephanie O’Connor, Century Village curator and archivist, said the re-enactment has been held for the past 20 years.
This weekend, Burton Century Village hosted a Civil War camp, allowing visitors to experience history in every corner of the museum. (Mara Morrison — The News-Herald)
O’Connor said the event is expected to draw between 700 and 1,000 visitors over the weekend and is intended to be an educational experience for them.
“History is passed down from the elders,” O’Connor said, “they’re like your grandfathers and grandmothers. To see their kids coming in with their kids and then their kids coming in, it’s wonderful to see the history being passed down.”
O’Connor returned to Century Village in February and says it’s been a whirlwind since then, having cleaned 25 homes and prepped 25 areas over the past two weeks in preparation for the weekend’s events.
“We had a little dedication ceremony for our treasurer yesterday,” O’Connor said. “The treasurer’s parents donated the display case, and they’ve passed away. They made a big contribution to the community and history, and they loved Century Village. We’ve been doing a lot over the last three months to get to where we are today. Everyone has been giving their time to support Century Village and make sure people can see themselves walking through the gates.”
O’Connor said volunteers and guides work together and everyone works as a team for Century Village.
“It’s all open,” she said.
Also in attendance at the reenactment was John King, who played the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
This is an event to educate and remind everyone of history, King said.
“We fought in the Civil War,” he said, “and it lasted longer than we would have liked, but we come together at events like this with the recognition that the Civil War happened, and it was not a pretty thing, but if we had not won the Civil War, we would have been divided into two countries.”
King became a re-enactor in the 1980s after growing a beard and being told he looked like Lincoln, and he began by borrowing a coat and hat and wearing it in front of his third-grade classroom.
Since then, King has participated in hundreds of different programs, speeches and re-enactments telling Lincoln’s history.
“It’s humbling,” he said. “I’ve been blessed and I’ve learned so much about him over time.”
Meanwhile, Barbara Tonshev played fictional spy Belle Montgomery.
Chef Ton enjoys educating women to show how much they have contributed to the world.
“They helped soldiers and did a lot of espionage,” she said. “I’ve been researching them for years and I’ve always found them fascinating.”
Tonshev, a retired cardiac technician from the Cleveland Clinic, has been performing re-enactments for the past eight or nine years, but she has been researching women in history for much longer.
“There were a lot of women involved in espionage, and their backgrounds are well known,” she says. “When I give talks, I not only talk about the Confederate women spies and smugglers, but also the Union women who were just as clever. That’s why I was arrested and had to leave the jail here in Barton Village train depot.”
David Walker played Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president at the time the nation was divided.
This was Walker’s third year participating in the Century Village re-enactment.
“I’m an educator at heart,” he said. “Whether people like politics or not, they have to understand that politics affect our lives. We can’t change what people have done in the past. We can only change the future. And those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There are a lot of young people who have no idea how this country was founded, and that’s a shame.”
Walker also began doing re-enactments in the 1980s.
This weekend, Burton Century Village hosted a Civil War camp, allowing visitors to experience history in every corner of the museum. (Mara Morrison — The News-Herald)
“It became very popular,” he says. “You go to a Gettysburg re-enactment and you get 12,000 re-enactors. When my son was born I got away from the hobby for a while, but I picked it up again when he was old enough.”
Walker said whoever he is playing has to embrace both the good and the bad of the person he’s playing.
“They’re not perfect,” he said.
There was a reason why Lane Smerglia decided to play Miss Darcy May St. James at this event.
Lane Smerglia will be playing brothel madam Miss Darcy Mae St. James at a Civil War camp event at Burton Century Village this weekend. (Mara Morrison — News-Herald)
“When I was a child, my grandmother called me Darcy May,” she recalled, “It turns out I had a cousin named Darcy May Pickle. I chose the surname St. James because a lot of prostitutes didn’t have surnames, and St. James became the name of a lot of women.”
Fittingly for his character, Smerglia said he owns an upscale store that stocks the finest beer, wine and bourbon.
“The men love to come and see me after a long day of fighting,” she said in character. “We sometimes have cigars, drinks and snacks. We have to earn money somehow. We bathe, we see doctors, we have licenses. Women who have lost everything – their husbands, their children – come to us and come to work for me.”
Smerglia feels it is important to educate people about what women went through during the Civil War.
“Women used to earn about a dollar a week,” she said, “and rent was about 50 cents a week, so now it’s 50 cents. On average, they have three children, so if you have three kids in the house and coal already costs about 40 cents a week per person, then my income is 10 cents. And we haven’t even talked about food yet.”
As a result, street prostitution and brothels have become rampant, Smerglia said.
“Men weren’t sending money home,” she says, “and they were spending it on food, clothes and prostitutes. To this day, on a per capita basis, it was the peak of prostitution in the United States.”
