Well, did any of you women stay home from work as a protest this week? I didn’t think so. I didn’t see any of you marching in the streets wearing vulgar pink hats either. We don’t do that in Laclede County. We’ve never done it, not our thing. Missouri women, especially those of us who live and work in the out-state areas, have way too many other things to do, like going to work every day to put food on the table and buy gas for the car, and cooking and doing the laundry, and volunteering at church or other organizations.
I’ve been doing some history research, and hard work, sacrificial love for family and country, and compassion for others is firmly engrained in the nature of women in this area. It didn’t just start during the Civil War period, but I have some interesting stories about how it was demonstrated during that time right here in Laclede County.
Missouri was a divided state during the war, and Laclede County was a divided county. The county was home base for the Union army at one time, and occupied by the Confederates at other times. When the Union won a victory, the northerners in the county lit candles in their windows. When the South won a battle, the homes of the Confederate families were lit up with victory candles.
Union troops occupied Lebanon in the early summer of 1861 until the battle of Wilson Creek in August. Confederate troops then occupied the town until 1862, when the Union army took possession again until the end of the war. A company of Union soldiers was stationed on the Gasconade River at the crossing of the old St. Louis-Springfield Road. The Union brick church, a large two-story building shared by several denominations prior to the war, was seized for barracks. It later burned after the war, and according to Gleason’s book, the Wood Street Baptist Church is now located on that site. I found that interesting since I grew up about three houses east of that church on the corner of Wood and Apple Streets.
There were strong and passionate feelings about the war here in our county. The men responded by joining the army of their choice. The women also had strong feelings, and lots of the women here had been raised in the north but married men from the south, but they “stood by their man,” and all of them kept the home fires burning and did all they could to keep their families together. For the most part they were able to transcend their partiality by showing support to each other and all the children when there was a need.
I’m using Frances Gleason’s book about the first one hundred years of Lebanon’s history, and she tells how at the beginning of the war, Mrs. Obediah Vernon was left a widow with eight young children to raise. She cultivated the fields by holding the plow handles as the children guided the oxen. When the older boys joined the army she carried on with the girls and younger children.
When Captain Wickersham left to lead his company south, his wife was left behind with four children, one of them a baby, and moved in with her sister in law. She went back to her home one day to find that a soldier had been through the house and had run his bayonet through all her fine china dishes, breaking everything except one expensive pitcher which her daughter proudly displayed in her home in Lebanon for years.
When “Aunt Martha” Harrison’s husband, John, was killed in battle, she took charge of the family business and proved herself a most capable business woman. Friends called her a tower of strength and an angel of mercy, going among all people who needed comfort or relief, and being especially helpful to the Negroes whose lot at this time was pitiful.
“Aunt Jane” Atchley was a strong woman for the Union cause, as well as a superb horsewoman, so the federal government assigned her the task of carrying dispatches between Jefferson City, Rolla and Springfield. Like all women of that day, she was too modest to ride astride her horse, so she dressed in a long black skirt of cotton or wool and rode side saddle, taking ditches and fences with ease. She had many daring escapes including one night when she was waylaid on the way to Springfield by six Confederate soldiers who fired on her and gave chase. She was saved only by the speed of her fine horse.
One night when “Uncle Billy” Saunders, a Confederate soldier, was home for a quick visit, Union soldiers surrounded the house and demanded he come out and surrender. Uncle Billy’s wife stood at one door and his daughter at the other, both with rifles. The Union soldiers knew that the first person who tried to enter would be killed, and none of them wanted to take the risk so they left.
James Vernon was called to the door of his home in the Glaize neighborhood one night and was shot when he opened the door. Several women walked the distance of ten miles to carry food and comfort to the grieving family.
One day when the town was filled with Union soldiers, Lizzie Saunders, one of the “rifle holders” mentioned above, made a speech for the Confederacy on the veranda of the Duvall hotel, waving a Confederate flag. Then she made a hasty exit and joined a family who were moving to Texas.
Don’t let the shrill voices of the protestors diminish your pride in being a woman. Honor the real women I have written about.
Probably some of them have descendants living right here among us.
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