One of the joys of studying the past is that it’s full of surprises, as National Public Radio reminded its listeners recently when it reported on a woman named Mattie Clyburn Rice. At 88, Rice is one of 23 elderly women who are the last living daughters of soldiers who served in the Confederacy. Thanks to that distinction, she has been recognized by the United Daughters of the Confederacy as one of that organization’s few “real daughters," as they are known in the UDC.
The fact that any children of Confederate veterans survive in 2011 is surprise enough. The war ended in 1865. Do the math.
But there's more. Rice is black.
Rice was the daughter of a young mother and an elderly father when her dad “regaled her with stories of his time spent in South Carolina's 12th Volunteer Unit,” NPR reports. “But when Rice repeated those stories as an adult, she was accused of spreading tall tales.” Eventually, Rice found her father's pension application in an archive. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The fact that any children of Confederate veterans survive in 2011 is surprise enough. The war ended in 1865. Do the math.
But there's more. Rice is black.
Rice was the daughter of a young mother and an elderly father when her dad “regaled her with stories of his time spent in South Carolina's 12th Volunteer Unit,” NPR reports. “But when Rice repeated those stories as an adult, she was accused of spreading tall tales.” Eventually, Rice found her father's pension application in an archive. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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