Press release from SCHGS
On Monday, March 28nd, Michelle Yipe, Argonia, will present the free program “Women in the Civil War” to the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and visitors at the Good Taste Chinese Buffet, Wellington. Meal at 5:30 p.m.; meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. For possible weather Cancellations, please contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266 or the Good Taste Chinese Buffet at 620-399-8401.
In 1982, Michelle Yipe’s father, who loved history, took her to the Wilson’s Creek Battlefield. For the next thirty-plus years, Yipe has dressed in Civil War period clothing and attended Civil War re-enactments.
“I’ve been doing it ever since,” Yipe said, adding that she does two or three events each year: Ft. Scott, Pea Ridge, and Wilson’s Creek.
“Basically we create our own character,” Yipe said, “we decide what type of character we want to portray.”
Yipe said that she has portrayed a woman from one of the many different groups of women who traveled and worked near the soldiers: laundresses, camp followers, women visiting from the town in the area, nurses, and she even portrayed a young boy soldier once and a ‘soiled dove’ a couple of times.
“I’ve also dressed in mourning clothes and portrayed a woman who has lost
her husband,” Yipe said.
“It depends on the event,” Yipe said, “It just depends on what actually happened at that battle.
“Officers could have their wives in the supply train” Yipe said, but enlisted men were not allowed to take their wives, so a lot of enlisted men’s wives took up jobs as laundresses so they could travel with their husbands. Some of them also served as nurses after the battles.”
“The Civil War is when nursing really came into being for women,” Yipe said, adding that prior to that time it was taboo for young, single women to see a man’s naked body, but by the end of the war women were being trained as nurses.
According to Yipe, some women dressed up as men or boys and served as soldiers.
“Every once in a while one of the skeletons that are dug up from the Civil War mass graves are female skeletons in a uniform,” Yipe said.
It doesn’t surprise Yipe how hard the roles of women were then as much as it surprises her how little all the things that women did are talked about in the history books today.
“It is surprising how little people know about our history,” Yipe said, “a lot of history was on the border of Kansas and Missouri. A lot of western states played a role on which side won.”
“I love doing this,” Yipe said.
