The Civil War changed the way we dealt with death. On October 19 at 7 pm at the Salem Museum, Civil War historian Betty Shideler will speak about the devastating effects of the War on the lives of women, and the difficulties Southern wives and mothers endured in locating, identifying, and transporting the bodies of their loved ones back home for burial.

Betty Shideler has been a student of the Civil War for more than ten years, earning continuing education certificates from the American Battlefield Trust. She has travelled to many locations to perform living history in full period attire. Her favorite persona is Frances Steptoe Burwell of Avenel Plantation in Bedford, Virginia. Betty is also a tour planner and recently took members of the Roanoke Civil War Roundtable on a Civil War tour of Harrisonburg and New Market, Virginia. She has been a docent at the Jubal Early Homeplace in Hardy and is currently a volunteer with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation.