Belle Boyd again

At the Friends of the Library meeting this afternoon, we were discussing attendance at special programs (lectures) sponsored by the Friends in the past. (Next month we have a guy coming to talk about passenger pigeons.) Apparently there are usually 30 to 40 people, but the record was for a presentation by a man who dressed as a Union soldier from the Civil War and talked about the experiences of the soldiers.

This made me think of Belle Boyd, the Confederate spy -- Cleopatra of the Secession -- who wound up dying unexpectedly in Wisconsin Dells in 1900 (it was still Kilbourn City in those days) and who is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery here. I asked if they had ever had a program about her.

Gisela Hamm, secretary of the Friends and involved in just about every other thing going on around here as far as I can tell, said that they had not, but she herself had written the brief article on Belle that was published in a local history. I explained that I had become interested in Belle after hearing a ghost story about her grave and had even made some notes for a one-woman play. Gisella got all enthused, told me I have to join the Dells County Historical Society and encouraged me to keep working on the play idea.

Another writing project that may have to come off the back burner ...

For more on Belle Boyd, click here.