Columbus’ United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter accepted an Iron Cross of Honor from UDC “sisters” of North Carolina Tuesday morning at the Stephen D. Lee Home in Columbus.
The Iron Cross, given in honor of Stephen D. Lee, the youngest confederate lieutenant general in the American Civil war, a Mississippi governor and the first president of Mississippi State University, was ordered by the UDC in the early 1900s. On Tuesday morning the cross was donated to the Stephen D. Lee Home & Museum, where it will be displayed.
According to local genealogist and Columbus’ UDC chapter secretary Elisa Barnes Shizak of Caledonia, Iron Crosses of Honor are requested by and presented to a UDC member to commemorate an ancestor who served honorably for the confederate army during the Civil War.
“It’s a way ladies of confederate veterans honor their ancestors,” says Shizak.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in Nashville in 1894, serves as a non-profit organization, which aims to honor the memory of confederate soldiers who fought to preserve their economic way of life in the South, protect and preserve sites and artifacts made historic by confederate veterans and record the role of southern women during the Civil War.
Shizak says she is proud to be a part of the UDC.
“We consider ourselves one of the original lady clubs,” says Shizak, citing sisterhood as a common value.
Shizak, who retired from federal government work in 2000, decided to pursue a masters degree in research and history at age 50 and who teaches art and genealogy at Mississippi University for Women, says she strongly encourages further education for adults, and she argues UDC is very much a part of that education.
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