Leslie Goddard is the go-to person at Halloween time for her friends.
With supplies and costumes filling her garage, the Darien resident has an array of characters to offer her buddies.
“I ask them what era they want,” Goddard said after a recent performance as Clara Barton.
Goddard has turn two of her passions – performing and history – into a full-time job. It started in 2003 when she did a performance for the Evanston History Center, where she was working at the time.
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She started doing one or two programs a year. That morphed into one of two performances a month, and then several each week. Goddard now does as many as 12 performances in a week.
“Three years ago, I was so busy that I decided to make it my full-time job,” Goddard said.
Her performance as Clara Barton was before the Flagg Creek Historical Society, which met April 15 at the Pleasant Dale Park District Recreation Center. She also makes presentations at schools and clubs.
She portrays women throughout history, including Jane Austin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Bette Davis, Titanic stewardess Violet Jessup, British servant Margaret Powell (whose memoirs helped inspire “Downton Abbey”) and Jacqueline Kennedy.
Goddard said she has not mixed up characters yet during a presentation, and that she loves being able to share women throughout history with audiences.
“I get to combine performing and history,” Goddard said, “two things that bring me happiness.”
During her Flagg Creek performance, Goddard focused on Barton’s extraordinary work as a Civil War nurse. She stopped short of Barton’s noted claim to fame of creating the American Red Cross.
She said Barton’s work during the Civil War was so amazing, especially for a woman at that time, that that is where Goddard feels the attention should be on her life.
“Ken Burns (in his Civil War documentary) only makes a mention of her and that is in passing,” Goddard said. “Her impact was not huge. There were organizations, such as the U.S. Sanitary Commission, that served a lot more bodies.
“But as an individual Clara Barton made an important contribution and her efforts were symbolic of what one person can do … She was a symbol of people standing up and making a difference.”
Alice Latham, president of the Flagg Creek Historical Society, said that her daughter was fascinated with Barton.
“She kept taking the same book about Clara Barton,” Latham said. “They eventually sent a note home saying she couldn’t check the book out anymore and that she had to check a different book out.”
Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.