User:Alonso Anderson/My sandbox

Born in Charlotte, N.C., she was the daughter of Mortimer Alberto Bland and Margaret Simons Clarkson. Dr. Bland, a dentist and prominent businessman in Charlotte, was a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, enlisting at Lincolnton, N.C. at the age of sixteen2. In his later re-enlistment Bland joined the Palmetto Guard of Charleston where he fought in numerous battles and was wounded3 by the explosion of a shell. He was later promoted to captain. Her mother, of Huguenot descent, was a member of the first graduating class of the Charlotte Female Academy in 1884. Fifty years later, in a somewhat saucy speech perhaps ahead of its time, she gave a welcoming address to the graduating class of 1934, explaining why “Female” was no longer in the current name of the college, Queens-Chicona4.