Ragged Soldier Sutlery and Vintage Volumes

Virginia's Veranda

Unfortunately, there will be no more posts for Virginia's Veranda. Virginia passed away on February 27, 2016. She will be sorely missed but will continue to live in the articles and other information she provided to the hobby of reenacting.

Veranda is defined in the 1864 edition of Webster's Dictionary of American English as, "An Oriental word denoting a kind of open portico, formed by extending a sloping roof beyond the main building." The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as, "An open portico or light roofed gallery extending along the front (and occas. other sides) of a dwelling or other building, freq. having a front of lattice-work, and erected chiefly as a protection or shelter from the sun or rain." In other words, a veranda is a porch added to the main building and porches are places where people sit, visit, and watch the world go by. The purpose of this page, attached to the main web site somewhat analagous to a porch being attached to a dwelling, is to have a friendly visit with our web visitors on our virtual veranda.

One of our goals in the study of the Civil War and the mid-nineteenth century is to learn about life styles of the nineteenth century. This study includes some subjects probably classified as mundane as well as the extraordinary. Material culture, holidays and celebrations, toys, foods, people, period activities and technology are just a few of the subjects that will be covered.

Sit down and enjoy the conversation. Just so Virginia is not doing all the talking, please suggest topics for further discussion and research. We hope to change the topic every two months or so and past topics will be archived so that the reader may refer to them later.

Article of the Season

We apologize if the text looks like it is afflicted with random bold characters. We'll work on getting rid of those but wanted to get the article on the website.

This article originally appeared in August and September 2003 issues of Camp Chase Gazette.

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This article is Copyrighted 2008 by Virginia Mescher. This article may not be reproduced by any means including printed or electronic, regardless of whether for fee or without charge, without the written permission of its author. This prohibition includes publishing it on a webpage except for small excerpts, appropriately credited.