CONNEAUT – Alethia Brooks grew up with a father who was fully immersed in the reenactment culture, and she fully embraced dressing with the look of a woman from the 1940s.
Lukas Smith’s life revolves around history and it was a natural fit to slide into the world of World War II reenacting.
The shared passion allowed the couple to meet, build a relationship and fall in love.
“It’s fantastic,” Smith, 23, said. “I’m really happy with her and she’s great. It’s awesome that we get to do this together and we have the same interests and she doesn’t think I’m a weirdo because I dress up with my buddies on the weekend because she does the same thing. We’re both very much on the same page of doing it right.”
Being young and meeting someone in the same age bracket to share the reenactment lifestyle with is important.
“We’re both invested in doing it, too.” Brooks, 20, said. “I feel it’s hard to convince people who don’t really get it. We don’t have to convince each other because we’re both fully in it. It’s my culture, so it’s hard to fit in with people who don’t understand it.”
Smith, from Pittsburgh, and Brooks, from Canton, met at a reenactment.
“I was running an event at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus at the Ohio Village and she attended the event,” Smith said. “That was the first time I met her, and then we were sort of in similar circles for a couple years and then, about a year and a half ago, we really just hit it off and we’ve been together ever since.”
Spending time together at D-Day Conneaut in Conneaut Township Park, as they did between Thursday, Aug. 13, and Saturday, Aug. 15, has allowed the couple to grow closer.
“The year before we started dating, we really spent a lot of time together here,” Smith said. “I wasn’t able to make it last year, but two years ago we were hanging out together quite a bit.”
“I think (it pulls us closer together),” Smith continued. “It’s really nice to be here with her, spending time with her and just doing what we like to do.”
Despite living in separate cities, the couple finds a way to spend time together regularly.
“I have to drive to see her,” Smith said. “We see other almost every weekend. I spend my weekends with pretty much. This past week, she spent a week at my house. The long distance sucks, but it’s only a two-hour drive. It’s not the worst. I’ve done it so many times now that I can basically do it in my sleep. I would love to see her every day, but I can’t and that’s OK. I think we get to see each other enough that it doesn’t put a strain on our relationship at all.”
Smith found reenacting through his love of history.
“I just sort of found it on my own,” Smith said. “My parents didn’t do it or anything. I just figured out that this was a thing and then this is one of the first events I came to, probably almost 10 years ago now, and it just snowballed from there. I do events all over Ohio and even up in Buffalo, all over the place.”
“I knew they did Civil War reenactments,” Smith continued. “I wondered if they do World War II because that’s my main passion. I looked up World War II reenactments near Pennsylvania, and this one popped up. I came as a spectator with my parents and then the year after that, I was involved in a group and doing the beach landing and all that. I grew up watching the History Channel and that’s sort of my whole life. I’m a historian in my day job. History is my whole life that’s just how it is.”
A family connection helped Smith’s interest in World War II grow.
“My great-grandfather served during World War II and that’s just what I grew up watching back when in the History Channel wasn’t aliens and stuff,” Smith said. “All it was, was World War II. I just grew up surrounded by World War II history. My grandfather’s a Vietnam veteran he was very involved in the VFW and the American Legion when I was a kid. My dad volunteered at the parade, and I got to meet a ton of World War II veterans. It really inspired me and drove my interest in that time period.”
Brooks’ interest in history and her dad’s involvement in reenactments pulled her into the lifestyle.
“I grew up loving history, and my dad was a reenactor, too, so he’s been going to this event for the longest time,” Brooks said. “As a kid, I came here, and I got into vintage fashion in general and I was like, ‘Why don’t I do that, too?’ I’ve been coming ever since and it’s been good.”
Smith made his first trip to D-Day Conneaut when he was 15 and Brooks was 17 when she first appeared in Conneaut Township Park.
D-Day Conneaut is an important event not just to the couple, but for the public who visits.
“I think it’s really cool how many people are exposed to it, how many people come out to this event and get to experience history and hands-on history,” Smith said. “That’s a big thing that I think is really important. It’s one thing to read a book or watch a documentary, but here you can feel things, you can touch things, you can smell things. You can use all of your senses to get a better sense of what World War II was like.”
“It’s impossible for us to totally recreate or even slightly recreate what combat was like,” Smith continued. “No battle reenactment is anywhere close (to what real battle is), but it’s still really important. There’s not real bullets and there’s not real death, but when you come here and you see 100 GIs line up to get their chow or something like that, you’re pretty close to seeing what it would’ve looked like to see 100 GIs line up for chow. That’s the cool aspect.”
Brooks appreciates the hands-on nature of D-Day Conneaut.
“The hands-on learning is really good, and it’s a good way to get kids and people passionate about it because you see it and then you’re like, ‘Wait a second, this is actually cool,’” Brooks said. “I hear a lot of people talk about how history is all boring and whatever, but if you come to an event like this and see it, I think it touches more people than just reading stuff or learning in school.”
Accuracy matters to Smith and his friends as they attempt to teach the public about World War II.
“For my group in particular, we are a group of younger guys,” Smith said. “We’re all in our 20s. I think the oldest guy in our group this weekend is, maybe, 30 and we call him ‘Pops.’ We take it very seriously. We go well above and beyond what a lot of other groups do in terms of authenticity, and I think it’s a very important thing to get right because we are the stewards for this history. We’re the ones showing people things, so it’s up to us to get it right. We’re the experts, so we have to get it right because people are going to trust what we say, trust what they see us doing, what they see us wearing, so that’s one of the most important things, at least for my group. We want to get it 110 percent right.”
Brooks does her best to be accurate with her portrayal of a 1940s-era woman with the blessing of her father.
“He thinks I do a really good job and, to me, it’s not just a hobby because I live it, too,” Brooks said. “I dress that way day to day. I just fully embrace the culture and the look. My hair isn’t done right now, but I do everything. I want to represent what a woman back then would’ve looked like. It’s a good way to show it to people and share that.”
Should wedding bells be in the future for Smith and Brooks, the celebration will reflect the couple’s passion for World War II. The event will not be a reenactment, but it will reflect Brooks’ wish for a wedding befitting that era.
“It will probably be a 1940s influence, but I wouldn’t get married in my World War II uniform or anything like that or have my friends dress up,” Smith said. “It’s not going to be your typical modern wedding for sure. It’s going to be a very classic wedding. If you come in, there’s going to be cigarettes on the tables.”
