Kings Chapel students give annual tour through living history

Civil War history came to life at Kings Chapel Elementary School during the annual Wax Museum event.

Students in the fifth grade portrayed the famous and not-so-famous on both sides of the struggle, North and South, and gender was a malleable characteristic.

Principal William Ray, in his second year at the school, said he didn’t know exactly how long the school has been staging the event, but said, “It has been a long-standing tradition” at the 51-year-old school.

Students pick, or are assigned, roles to research, write about and then portray to other students, teachers and adults, Ray said.

“Their ability to communicate their learning to other classmates and to grown-ups is an important part of the process,” he said. “It helps them with their public speaking and with their confidence.”

The roles run the gamut of period personalities, from Mary Todd Lincoln to slaves, from Frederick Douglass to the everyday Confederate soldier.

Fifth grade teacher Kelly Voss was in charge of the event.

“We taught the Civil War and the Reconstruction period through social studies, and during their language arts class students did research, wrote their research papers with bibliography and sources, and researched their character, such as when they were born, when they died, their dress and all that, then they wrote a speech highlighting the important facts and some day-to-day facts,” Voss said.

The digging into history brought forth some material one would not normally find in history texts, she said.

“One of our students realized that their person was married to two wives at the same time,” she said. “You know, just interesting things. Another student found their person had several children who passed away before he did.”

Six teachers in the fourth and fifth grade handled the assignments, she said, splitting the responsibilities among social studies, language arts, math and science. Students had been preparing since the end of October.

They have been using the Civil War as a way of focusing students’ research efforts and to give unity to the event, she said.

And what do teachers get out of the exercise?

“We get to see the fruits of our labor,” Voss said. “We walk them through the various stages and then get to see what they’ve gotten out of all of it. The excitement on their faces, and the creativity they bring to it.”

The cafeteria was filled with historical figures just waiting to educate interested passers-by. One had to tap the shoulder and the figure would spring into action.

First up was 10-year-old Landon Morstad, portraying famed photographer Matthew Brady.

“I didn’t know much about him,” Landon said before running through facts about Brady and his photography studio.

“You see those walking around with clipboards?” Voss asked. “They’re writing down information about the people they’re learning about. It’s not just walk around and do whatever. They’re like reporters and are being graded on what they find.”

Next up on the tour was Trinity Wheeler, 10, who was portraying noted Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew from Richmond, Va.

Trinity said the most interesting thing she discovered was Van Lew was able to pass through President Jefferson Davis’s house without being noticed.

Now to a villain. A tap on the shoulder and, “My name is John Wilkes Booth, and I was born May 10, 1838, in Bel Air, Md.” Anna Johnson, 11, rattled off the particulars of Booth’s short life (he was 26 when he died), including the “sic semper tyrannis” (this always to tyrants) he reportedly said when jumping on the stage after shooting President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865.

Anna said Booth was her second choice, but she really liked doing the research and writing about him. “I liked all of it,” she said, “especially the writing.”

Jakallia Hendrick, 11, portrayed Harriet Beecher Stowe, the famous author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

“I liked her; she was loving and cared for other people and wanted to free the slaves,” Jakallia said.

“Now we’ve got John Brown over here,” Voss said, pointing out a fifth grader with a long gray beard.

Jayden Jackson, 10, said the most interesting thing she found in her research on John Brown was his two sons, John and Watson, died in the 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid.

“I think he was a good man,” Jayden said about Brown.

Lindsay Grant, 11, said she picked Harriet Tubman because “she helped slaves escape, and I thought that was really nice.” She also liked the numerous slaves Tubman helped escape through the Underground Railroad.

Riley Burks, 9, said Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson interested him a lot, especially being a victim of “friendly fire.”

Red Cross founder Clara Barton’s birth on Christmas Day grabbed the attention of 11-year-old Ellie Hamrick.

An intriguing fact about Gen. William T. Sherman that 10-year-old Carter Horton found was the fact his father died when he was 9 years old. Horton said Sherman’s March to the Sea was either good or bad, “depending on your outlook. I think it was good because it shortened the war.”

Malaysia Ford, 10, who portrayed Tubman in the morning session, said the event “is really fun. You learn a lot of different things about people you didn’t know before.”

Danny Snell, 10, was a slave.

“I picked it because it was the very last category,” he said. “I found that being a slave meant you worked all the time. I don’t think you had any days off and they didn’t pay you. And if you did something they didn’t like they would whip you.”

Portraying your generic Confederate soldier was 12-year-old Levi Kruger, whose display focused on the everyday life of the soldier. He even showed a clothes washer – a handmade washboard made of twine and small branches.

“They had to make almost everything,” Kruger said, noting that the Union army wasn’t so well off themselves. “They lived terribly. They had bad medical conditions, they didn’t have much food supplies.”

Kailey Harrington, 11, picked famed Charleston diarist Mary Chesnut.

“I think she was a cool person. I didn’t want to pick someone easy to research; I wanted a challenge. She was very important, though,” Kailey said. “She got married at 17, and that surprised me. I’ve read some of her diary online. It’s about the Civil War and it’s a really good book.”

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