Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting - October 13, 2016
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.
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
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 petie8135@att.net,
about a gift membership.
October
Meeting
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.