The March meeting of the Rufus Barringer Civil War Round Table will be held at 7:00pm. on Thursday, March 21st at the Civic Club on the corner of Pennsylvania and Ashe St. in Southern Pines. Socializing begins at 6:30pm. As part of a unique presentation, there will be two speakers for this meeting, Mary Hatcher and Jean Hutchinson. They will do a joint living history presentation titled “Ruin and Remembrance.” Throughout the entire period of the War, men discussed politics, moved armies and fought battles while those left at home discussed absent loved ones, moved families out of harm’s way and fought to keep themselves and their children clothed and fed even as society crumbled about them, The power point program Ruin and Remembrance relies on the articulate and poignant words of Southern women’s diaries and letters paired with nineteenth century images to tell the story of widespread grief and loss across the South.

Mary Hatcher’s interest in history was sparked during the Civil War Centennial and she graduated with a degree in US History with a concentration in Civil War Studies from The University of Mary Washington. For more than nine years Mary worked for the National Park Service as a seasonal and permanent employee at Petersburg National Battlefield and Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park; she worked in both living history and as a staff historian. Since moving to Mount Pleasant, SC in 1992, Mary has volunteered at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park and been the proprietress of The Lady’s Maid Historical Clothing, recreating and sewing more than a hundred mid nineteenth century dresses.

Jean Hutchinson was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and graduated from Furman with a BA in art and received her master’s in Vocational Rehabilitation from the University of South Carolina. After a 40-year career in practice as a vocational consultant, she is happily retired and living her family’s historic 1870s home in Abbeville, SC. Jean is a member of the Costume Society of America, the South Carolina Historical Society, United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Carolina Ladies Aide Society, and the Colonial Ladies Society. She is a living historian in both 18th and 19th centuries, and an avid seamstress, spinner, and knitter.

All meetings are open to the public. For more details contact Matt Farina at 910.246.0452 or mafarina@aol.com.  The Rufus Barringer Civil War Round Table is a 501(c)(3), incorporated, non-profit, educational organization. The purpose of the organization is to promote, educate, and further stimulate interest in, and discussion of, all aspects of the Civil War period.