Meditations on Mary Elizabeth Massey

In this season of remembrance,Trying to distinguish “fact from fable,”Sorting the she from herself,Did she know herself?

As able as anyone out of Arkansas,Arriving on Christmas Day 1915.Out of sync, in an era of husband-hunting,Biding her allotted time, avoidingSinkholes into which she dared not, could not,Would not,Disappear.Visibility, ability, and moving beyond appearances:She forced the seed, in the little bit of dirt she’d scraped together,Blossoming into a “lady scholar.”

Drawing strength from the daughters of Mnemosyne,Choosing her muse carefully, Investing in she who would cheat time,Making her future the past.

Don’t forget your manners, bidding for a place at high table,Ideas dancing from fingers to fonts,From smooth pages to card catalogues—Days and nights filled with research, research, research.

Visions of sugarplums replaced by gilt letters on leather,Titles glittering on library shelves,Immortalized in bibliographies.Language and time, remembering and forgetting.Books rather than blood . . . in the long run.But how long is this proverbial run?

Forgotten causes of the Civil War,Buried deep in scholars’ shuffles.Displaced mothers and childrenweigh heavily in the balance.Refugees of war, casualties of history.Hanging onto a pendulum,waiting to be rescued from malignant neglect.

Contents may have shifted during flight.Disciple of Clio removes her sharpened pencilFrom behind an unadorned ear,To transcribe storiesSleeping within the foldsLabeled “Not of political interest.”Reversing fortunes with deliberate strokes,Research, research, research,Turning trash into treasure.

Bobbing and weaving, from normal to extraordinary—only a little wiggle room.Girdling her loins against the catcalls of preening, leonine gatekeepers,With wide-jawed yawns, lazing under Tarheel skies,Nonchalantly swatting Herself sideways.

While bouncy bow-tied cubs,Snap their braces to propel themselves across theDixie landscape, into magnolia-scented campus suitesthey knew they deserved.Plying their trade to eagerly upturned ids.

Hers was not to question why,But why not?Straying from appointed spheres,White gloves are not just for Sunday best, butDonned in the archives.Research times three gave her momentum:Exile along the Chesapeake,Then recalled to the Carolinas, to a softer berth at Rock Hill.Where young Palmetto women of Winthropmight yawn as well,but then they arched their backs,uncurling as they stretched,Like their unfurling professor,Dr. Massey.Stretching herself.

Herself publishing a pioneering study that earned good reviews, but more important, made students and fellow scholars alike reach for the dictionary (See “ersatz”).

Herself preventing the Civil War Centenary from becoming a stag affair and publishing the one, the only—“not your grandad’s” Civil War Centennial Series volume.

Herself worming her way behind closed doors—Councils, committees and chair, oh my!

Perhaps, unable to part with precious tokens, trappings, titles—She flew solo.Edging her way up the ladder, and onto the tightrope.Unwilling to peer down or sideways, Dead straight ahead,Herself. Alone.Performing under pressure.

After the long hard slog,So easy to slip . . .and without a net (or network).

Even the surface can’t break your fall,as you somersault into the dreaded sinkhole,stuck in the primordial ooze claimed “always been that way.”

She spread her wings aboard the SHA.Enjoying moments in the sun:Fontainebleu in ’62.Holding courtHerself:Madam President in seventy-two at Hollywood at the Beach.

“Unshackle your mind and spirit,” like the feminist in the making she was . . .Put down your pedestals, ladies,Proceed with caution:May be a danger to your health.

HerselfPrematurely robbed of her fifty-eighth birthday,Dead on Christmas Eve, a year and a month after herSplashdown presidential address,sinking into the waves.Whether braving Civil War Round Tables orFacing a firing squad of feminist interrogations,She, as a first, will always lurk just below the surface.

Laid to rest, but her mantra remains:Research, research, research:Remapping the contours of Civil War history,Recovering lost lives and forgotten landscapes Rediscovering silenced voices and unvisited graves.Could she have foreseen a Thavolia,Marching across contested terrain...