Malvina Black Gist: Civil Worker in Civil War

Notes

• * From Mrs. Clark Waring, A Confederate Girl's Diary, quoted in Smythe, Poppenheim and Taylor, South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, State Committee Daughters of the Confederacy, Columbia, SC, 1903, p. 279.
• Malvina Black Gist married Clark Waring in 1867 and lived for the remainder of her life in Columbia, South Carolina. She produced numerous short stories and volumes of poetry, and three novels. At her death in 1930 at the age of 88, she was survived by three children. (This biographical information was obtained from Katharine M. Jones, Editor, Heroines of Dixie: The Winter of Desperation, Ballantine Books, New York, 1955, p. 194.)
• Malvina Black Gist Waring was a central figure in the organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the state of South Carolina. She served as the Organizing Regent for the Columbia Chapter, which is the first chapter in the state. She later served as the second State Regent for South Carolina and then Vice President General from South Carolina. The portrait of Mrs. Waring at left is provided by the Columbia Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, from a 1994 edition of the National D. A. R. magazine commemorating the centennial of the Columbia Chapter's organization under Mrs. Waring's leadership.
• Malvina's first husband, William M. Gist, was Major and later Lieutenant Colonel, commanding, of the 15th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Son of Gov. William H. Gist (see the Gist home, Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site, Union, SC), he died in action near Knoxville in November 1863, about 11 months after he and Malvina Black were wed. (This biographical note was provided by Kirk Johnston, Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster, SC.)