When students and community members stepped through the doors of Norton Auditorium Tuesday, April 8, they were taken back to the year 1861 when Sallie Independence Foster first began her 26-year friendship with her diary in her home, now Rogers Hall.

Presented by the Distinguished Events Series, Foster’s life story was told by storyteller and actress Dolores Hydock and accompanied by music by musician and composer Bobby Horton.

Jim McDonald and Flora Speed, Foster’s great grandchildren, donated her diaries, letters and composition books to the UNA archives in 2012, Hydock said.

“Sallie Independence Foster was 12 years old living in Florence, Ala. in 1861 when the war between the states began,” Hydock said. “She was keeping a diary at that time and kept on keeping a diary on and off for 26 years. Those diaries and some other papers have been taken care of and preserved by her family.”

Hydock found the perfect subject for her storytelling when she was reading a newspaper article on the donation of Foster’s diaries to the UNA archives.

“I’m reading this article and I go ‘This might be exactly what I was looking for,’ a Civil War story about a woman from Alabama that nobody knew much about,” Hydock said.

The event was open to the community and when they attend, it speaks to students.

“There were more people than I thought,” said sophomore Brooke Bacon. “The locals really came out for it.”

Freshman Sydney Childers’ favorite part was the music.

“I love how the music is intertwined with the history — it really brings us back to the actual time,” Childers said.

Bacon thinks it is important to come to the Distinguished Event Series.

“I think as young people it puts us there rather than just reading it in a textbook,” Bacon said.