Annie's family was always interested in history for as long as she can remember.  When she was about 10, her parents got into Civil War reenacting and became involved with her local living history museum, Historic Richmond Town.  Fascinated by the prospect of recreating everyday life of an earlier time (and, of course, the possibility of time-travelling herself), she naturally followed suit.  Her mother made my clothes --- a boy's suit, because she wanted to be a boy at the time!

She started in 1993 or 1994, making it 19 or 20 years!  She said "I feel old now.  Thanks, Nick!"

When her parents started volunteering at Historic Richmond Town, they became friends with Bill McMillen, who was the Supervisor of Restoration at the time and also headed the tinsmith shop.  Her parents put her into a tinsmithing apprenticeship that summer.  Bill got the impression that she was obedient and handy, and so he kept her on indefinitely to study with him every summer and at special events throughout the year.  As she got older and understood a little better what it was we were doing in the context of historic trades, she read and experimented more and more on her own and began making her own patterns, collecting tools, and doing demonstrations at other museums.  With Bill's retirment, Annie began teach the apprentices that come every summer. Always obediant, she still goes up to see her old master every year or so and learn something new from him every time!  It was always less important to him that she was female, but that she was devoted to the work.  She stated that she has always been  honest with people about what she is doing --- and her goal is to demonstrate the tinsmithing trade itself, as accurately as possible, rather than to attempt to represent a tinsmith of the period (who would, to the best of knowledge, almost certainly be male).  She would not venture a guess as to what the future holds for living history museums and the reenacting hobby, but hopes that both will experience an upswing at some point as the economy recovers and history recaptures the popular imagination, noting that these things tend to come and go in waves.

What attracted Annie to living history as a child is still what attracts her now, except for the opportunity to magically travel back in time.  Annie finds it intellectually exciting to set ourselves to the task of learning about something exhaustively enough to recreate it with some degree of accuracy. She finds it an honor to be in the position of making a final presentation to the public after years of work and study.  She says that "this is also a way of life that keeps one humble (or at least, it should!)--- the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know." She has been astonished while researching to see my mental "rules" about this or that crumble in the face of some new discovery or more in-depth understanding of a subject. With that in mind, she said that she would like to see less schadenfreude in the hobby.  "Sophomoric self-righteousness from the "hard core" community can be just as mentally  limiting and dangerous as ignorant farbery.  None of us really knows everything, but if you think you do, you might just stop trying to learn." 

In her time travel, Annie went from passenger to conductor, and has never ceased to enjoy the ride.