Melissa graduated from Davidson College with a B.A. degree in history. While attending law school at William & Mary Melissa worked at Colonial Williamsburg as a costumed historical interpreter. From this experience she realized that the stories of people, places, and ideas do not tell themselves: they have to be told by others. Melissa occupies the narrow niche of crossdressing historical reenactors, and is becoming well known in the world of Civil War reenacting. She has an impressive collection of reproduction dresses from the hoopskirt era of the 1860s to the bustle era of the 1870s and 1880s.