Posted on 12/24/2004 9:01:40 AM PST by Theodore R.
Class learns research studying tombstones
By PATRICK COURREGES pcourreges@theadvocate.com Acadiana bureau
EUNICE -- An LSU at Eunice history instructor has spent the past several years getting her students to teach tombstones to talk.
Alma Reed, a former high school teacher who has taught at LSUE for the past six years, has been sending her students out to learn history from the bottom up -- tracking down the graves of locally buried veterans of the Civil War and finding everything they can about their lives.
She said her students often don't care for the assignment when they first hear about it, but almost always surprise her with the ingenuity and enthusiasm they apply to it by the end of a semester.
Reed said she's seen students discover Civil War-era cemeteries she had never even known about as far away as Calcasieu Parish.
She's also seen students dig into their own family histories, and recalls one student who debunked a long-standing belief in his own family that his great-great-great-grandfather was a Confederate deserter.
Reed said, in that case, the student found out that his ancestor had been released from his service and later rejoined the army and served in the battle of Vicksburg.
Students of the class seek out not only Confederate graves, but those of Union soldiers who stayed on after the war or came back to it later, as well as some home-grown Union soldiers, she said.
Reed said that many black soldiers who served in the Union army with the Louisiana Native Guards are buried in a cemetery near Alexandria.
She said the students use many tools in their work to take a name on a tombstone and use it to bring forgotten stories back to life.
They search books on Civil War regiments and records of battles they fought, church records, national archives, libraries and courthouse records, Reed said.
She said that genealogical societies are also a big help for the projects.
Her students have come back with gravestone rubbings, pictures of various gravesites and even artifacts from the time period.
Reed said she got the idea when she was looking for a way to force the students to learn how to do research.
Wow, this history doesn't include homersexuals or other perversions, just wow!!!
Taphophile ping
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