Unlacing the Lady

When Barbara Malta presented her Unlacing the Lady act for the Lunch With Friends group on October 21 at Marco Lutheran Church, she was calling on her background as a Civil War re-enactor.

“I’ve been a Civil War re-enactor for over 20 years,” Malta said moments before her performance. “When we would go out to the re-enactments, the men would perform the battles and the women would set up tents and we would put out our quilts. We would be quilting, we’d be tatting making lace, making tea, making shirts for the men, making soap, all the things that we would then provide for the soldiers. Women would come by and look at what we were doing, and they would be very interested in our crafts, but they would say, aren’t you hot in that outfit? Do you have real authentic clothing? Are you wearing a bloomer? Are you wearing a corset? And of course, at the battlefield I did not undress, but I started doing this at tea clubs for women. So they found it very interesting about how many layers I’m actually wearing, why we wore them, how we wore them, and it became Unlacing the Lady.”

The crowd of around 200 delighted in Malta’s unlacing until she was down to her bloomers. “I’m not taking off any more,” Malta said, eliciting laughs and then applause from the appreciative audience.

Allyson Richard started Lunch with Friends nine years ago with friend Nancy Kot.

“We started this so that people wouldn’t be alone,” Richards said. “Because there’s such a thing as poverty of socialization. And we’ve seen a lot of that here. We see a lot of people come in who don’t know anybody. Somebody passed away. They’re best friend’s gone, whatever the issue is. And now they have friends; they sit down with somebody. And next time it’s ‘Hi Susie, how are you?’ And so they have a friend. We provide everything free. We don’t even put out a basket because I don’t want anybody to think they have to give money. We invite every pastor on the island to come. And we have four today.”

Richards said the group loves Malta.

“She is an amazing lady who has put all this together,” Richards said. “And she’s willing to share everything that she’s done, which I think is pretty fabulous.”