When Katie Burton began organizing a new chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Chattanooga, she was solving a problem she knew firsthand.
As a college student and later a full-time intern with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Burton found it difficult to participate in her DAR chapter because meetings were held during the workday.
Her experience wasn’t unique. As she talked with other members, she discovered many women had reached the same conclusion: they wanted to be involved, but work schedules, school and family commitments often made daytime meetings impossible.
The result is the Tennessee River Chapter, which is now organizing in Chattanooga and plans to begin formal meetings later this year. The chapter will meet on the second Tuesday evening of each month at the Medal of Honor Heritage Center, offering an alternative to the city’s existing chapters, which mostly meet during weekday lunch hours.
For Burton, the chapter’s organizing regent, the schedule is only the starting point. As she and board members Jessica Dumitru and Linda Moss Mines discuss the chapter they hope to build, the conversation moves from family history and volunteer work to civic engagement, friendship and the ways a 135-year-old organization continues to evolve.
Different paths, same organization
Every member of the DAR begins with the same requirement: documenting lineal descent from someone who supported the American cause during the Revolutionary War.
“You can even get female patriots if they bandaged soldiers or provided supplies to the cause,” Dumitru says.
After that, members tend to discover their own place within the organization.
Burton enjoys working with junior members, helping women younger than 40 build friendships while participating in service projects.
Dumitru, an attorney and Moss Mines’ daughter, spends much of her volunteer time supporting veterans and civic programs.
Moss Mines, a retired educator and longtime history volunteer, has become one of the chapter’s resident genealogists – known in DAR as “genies.” She helps prospective members trace their family lines and prepare the documentation required for membership.
“I was doing someone’s papers at 2 this morning,” Moss Mines laughs. “When I can’t sleep, that’s what I do. I start digging through records because you have to document every generation.”
Together, the women describe an organization whose official mission – historic preservation, education and patriotism – takes shape in many different ways.
Members volunteer in schools, preserve historic sites and cemeteries, participate in veterans programs, support conservation efforts, enter art and writing contests, conduct genealogical research and organize service projects throughout their communities.
“If your passion is teaching, we have a committee that helps provide curriculum,” Dumitru says. “We have so many different tracks that it’s a very wide base for a lot of different types of people.”
Changing perceptions
Moss Mines understands why some people hesitate when they hear the name Daughters of the American Revolution. She once hesitated herself.
She was invited to join years before becoming a member, largely because she carried the same impression many people still have.
“I grew up thinking you had to come from a wealthy family to belong to DAR,” she says. “You had tea together, you wore gloves. That was the image I had.”
Teaching kept her from attending daytime meetings anyway, so she postponed joining until 2008, when she had enough flexibility in her schedule to participate regularly. By then, she’d discovered that the image she carried bore little resemblance to the women she met.
“We’re working women across the board,” she says.
Dumitru’s experience followed a similar path. As a full-time attorney raising children involved in travel sports, neither luncheon meetings nor Saturdays worked for her family. Burton’s proposal for an evening chapter immediately caught her attention.
“When Katie suggested it, it was the perfect solution because I can carve out a Tuesday night,” she says.
Organizers say they have already heard from women interested in reinstating memberships after years away because an evening schedule finally makes participation realistic. Burton says others who had considered joining are now reaching out for information as well.
Following the family story
Listening to Moss Mines describe genealogy, it becomes clear that she sees it as far more than assembling birth certificates and census records.
She recently solved a family mystery that had occupied her for years after DNA evidence from a cousin helped connect one branch of her Moss family to previously unknown Revolutionary War ancestors. Since then, she’s immersed herself in military records and pension files, tracing where those ancestors traveled and the battles they fought.
“They come alive when you start reading their papers,” she says. “You begin to get a sense of who they were through the way they wrote and the stories they told.”
The work satisfies a curiosity she believes many people share.
“I think, as humans, we all want to know who we are, why we’re here and how we’re connected,” she says.
Dumitru smiles at her mother’s enthusiasm. Genealogy isn’t what drew her to DAR, but she enjoys hearing the stories once Moss Mines uncovers them.
“At the end of the day, they become relatable,” she says. “They’re moms and dads trying to raise their children and build a better world for them.”
Those discoveries, she says, help connect the ideals of the Revolutionary generation to the responsibilities of citizenship today, encouraging people to vote, volunteer and stay engaged in their communities.
A broader picture of America’s past
The organizers also hope prospective members arrive without preconceived notions about who belongs in the DAR.
Membership is based solely on documented lineage, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, and the women point out that the Revolutionary generation itself reflected more diversity than many people realize.
Recognized patriots include soldiers and civilians of African American, Native American, French and Spanish heritage whose contributions supported the cause of independence.
“I think a lot of people assume DAR members come from old, aristocratic families,” Moss Mines says. “I like to think I’m purely American because we’re all mixed. We have a bit of everything in us.”
The organization is similarly diverse in its membership today, the women say.
“We’re nonpolitical,” Moss Mines says. “People can have a variety of opinions and still love the republic.”
Dumitru agrees, saying members represent a broad range of viewpoints while remaining united by shared interests in history, education and service.
Looking ahead
As the conversation turns toward the nation’s recent 250th anniversary, the three women find themselves talking less about genealogy than about civic life.
Dumitru worries that people are becoming increasingly disconnected from their communities and from one another.
“I think it’s social media,” she says. “Everybody’s becoming a little more inward.”
Moss Mines believes organizations such as DAR provide opportunities for people to gather around common interests, volunteer together and learn from one another, even when they hold different opinions.
“We’ve lost the ability to talk about things,” she says.
Looking back at the nation’s founders, she sees people who argued vigorously while remaining committed to a common purpose.
“We agree on so much more than we disagree on,” she says. “Too often, we spend our lives focused on where we disagree.”
Those ideas are guiding the vision they have for the Tennessee River Chapter as it prepares for its first meeting. Organizers are planning genealogy workshops at the downtown library in September, where experienced researchers will help prospective members begin tracing their family histories and determine whether they have Revolutionary War ancestors.
Burton hopes the workshops, scheduled for Sept. 17, 6-9 p.m., and Sept. 19, 9 a.m.-noon, will introduce women to an organization that has enriched each of the organizers’ lives in different ways.
For some, it’s been an opportunity to preserve local history. Others have found friendships, service projects, veterans programs or simply a deeper understanding of their own families.
As the chapter begins recruiting members, Burton hopes it also creates space for women who have long wanted to participate but have never had the chance.
“The meeting might take place on a Tuesday evening instead of over lunch, but the purpose remains much the same,” she says. “We’re bringing people together around a shared history and encouraging them to put that history to work in their own communities.”