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VOL.37, NO.10
OCTOBER 2025
Time travel with interpreters
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ARTS & STYLE Historian Lynne Garvey-Hodge of Clifton, Virginia, regularly portrays suffragist Amelia Himes Walker, above, and other historical figures. “I love re-enacting — especially the research and prep, attention to details, ways to engage the audience and a like passion for my character’s passion,” she said.
Well, the National Association of Interpretation defines it as “a purposeful approach to communication that facilitates meaningful, relevant and inclusive experiences that deepen understanding, broaden perspectives, and inspire engagement with the world around us.”
That means heritage interpreters are not just actors who memorize lines. While interpretation is a form of acting, the goal is to recreate a time and place and generate excitement about history. Unlike theater See INTERPRETERS, page 14
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What is historic character interpretation?
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A unique form of acting
PHOTO COURTESY OF LYNNE GARVEY-HODGE
By Glenda C. Booth Fairfax County resident Lynne GarveyHodge says she has learned to sit and get up from a chair like a Victorian lady, but the feisty characters she portrays likely did not live up to the stereotypical Victorian feminine ideal. Garvey-Hodge has portrayed Amelia Himes Walker, a 20th-century American suffragist, more than 100 times, wearing a white Edwardian dress and purple sash, like the suffragists did. Walker was a Silent Sentinel — one of the women who picketed on the White House sidewalk in 1917 for the right to vote, and was arrested and sentenced to 60 days in prison in the Lorton Workhouse in Northern Virginia. She also portrays Angelina Grimké Weld, whose father in the 1830s was a Charleston, South Carolina judge and slaveholder. Angelina opposed slavery on religious grounds and tried to desegregate churches. Garvey-Hodge has a third character she slips into from time to time: Boston’s Susanna Wheatley, who in the 1700s enslaved Phillis Wheatley, a kidnapped African girl. Susanna eventually adopted Phillis, who became a poet and the first African-American woman to publish her writings. For these roles, Garvey-Hodge, a volunteer, does exhaustive research. “I have to learn their daily life, the food they ate, their vocabulary, the politics of the day, even their bed attire,” she said. “I read, read, read and read.” Heritage interpreters don’t just tell stories. They take people back in time and help them appreciate our country’s cultural, historical and natural resources. It’s not a job; it’s a calling.
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