Living History Interpreter  - Karlee Turner Etter 

Karlee’s passion for women’s history, began when she was a student at Trinity College in Hartford. Since then, she has immersed herself in researching women’s historical lives, specifically American women who refused to submit to the status quo forced on them by society and culture.

 For the past twenty-five years she has researched, developed, presented and/or portrayed in First-Person the complex details of more than a dozen American women lives.

 As a first-person interpreter and living history author, she has appeared at Mystic Seaport in various positions and roles. During her tenor at the seaport, she was a member of the writing team and cast in Mystic’s annual Lantern Light Tours.

Additionally, she portrayed two whaling captain’s wives; Mrs. EllenWheldon and Lydia Landers.  Karlee created Mrs. Wheldon  based on research from over a dozen whaling wives who lived at sea with their husbands during the mid-late nineteenth century.

Karlee’s portfolio of intriguing American females continues to expand and now includes Sarah Kemble Knight of Boston, and Norwich; Kesia Cleveland Jones of Norwich; Mary Fish Silliman of Stonington, New Haven and Fairfield; and Elizabeth Glendower Evans of Massachusetts who visited and was arrested while in Norwich.

Whatever the audience, setting or venue, Karlee enjoys the challenge and excitement of sharing little-told (or never-told) stories of unconventional women.  Women who had the tenacity and courage to stand up to society’s status quo. “Ordinary women who lived extra-ordinary lives.”