Culture
Presentation on Lives of Athens Area Civil War Soldiers Slated for August 5
By: Emily Votaw
Posted on:
Isaac Nice, of Athens County, served on the 92nd Ohio Infantry in the American Civil War. In 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga he was shot in the head, resulting in lifelong deafness in one ear and blindness in one eye. Nice never served as a soldier again, but did spend his fair share of time as a nurse at various hospitals until his regiment was mustered out in 1865.
Nice went on to live well into his ‘80s, a colorful character in Athens County who worked as a farmer and a carpenter. He is also one of several direct and collateral ancestral ties that genealogist Deb Root Shell has to the Civil War.
Shell started to dive deep into history and genealogy in the ‘70s, when both of her grandmothers were alive. She asked them questions, and they were happy to talk, giving her many leads on her research. Shell would go on to be a professional historian in many ways, working as a librarian and as a manuscript processor at the Western Reserve Historical Society.
On Saturday, August 5, Shell will present the stories of four Civil War Soldiers from the Athens County area at the monthly meeting of the Multicultural Genealogical Center in Chesterhill, OH. Three of them (including Nice) are direct or collateral ancestors of Shell.
“I do a lot of Civil War research, although I am not a military historian by any means, I leave that to other people,” said Shell. “What I like to research are the full lives of the people involved in the Civil War – what their experience of it was like, and how it impacted them afterwards.”
Shell’s presentation will take place at 1 p.m. at the Multicultural Genealogical Center located in Chesterhill at the intersection of Route 377 and Route 555. The meeting is free, donations are accepted, and a lunch will be provided after Shell’s presentation.