Washington and Lee University, University Library Special Collections and Archives
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This collection is open for research use.
[Identification of item] Jane McNabb Reid Portrait and Needlework Sampler (RHS Coll. 0508), Special Collections and Archives, James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
Donated to the Rockbridge Historical Society by Jane McNabb Reid's great-great grandchildren Susan Prewitt and her siblings.
Jane McNabb was born in 1822 in Lexington, Virginia to John McNabb. Her mother's name is unknown. She married William Reid in 1848. She died in 1889 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Rockbridge County, Va.
This collection consists of a portrait and needlework sampler that belonged to Jane McNabb Reid. The needlework sampler was created by Reid when she was 18 years old in 1840 and includes several alphabets and the following four lines: Teach me to feel another's woe/To hid the fault I see/That mercy I to others show/That mercy show to me. The text is based on a poem by English poet Alexander Pope. The portrait is of an older Jane, likely created in the years preceeding her death in 1889.