Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Lacy Family Papers, Mss. Collection 2001.16, Kegley Library, Wytheville Community College, Wytheville, VA

Acquisition Information

Donated by Ruth Ann Chitwood in 2001 as part of the W. R. Chitwood Collection.

Biographical Information

Rev. Thomas H. Lacy (1848-1928, son of Richmond Terrell Lacy and Ellen Green Lane, was born in New Kent County, Virginia. Lacy graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1872 and served in Episcopal parishes in Virginia and West Virginia. He married Mary Baldwin Goodwin (1844-1903) in September 1873 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Wytheville, Virginia. She was the daughter of Rev. Frederick Deane Goodwin. The couple had four daughters included Mary Goodwin Lacy (1875-1962, Ellen Lane Lacy (1876-1960), Frances Eppes Lacy (1879-1963), and Ethel Archer Lewis Lacy (1887-1971). Son Thomas Hugo Lacy and daughter Josephine Wales Lacy died in infancy. Rev. Lacy died in Richmond, Virginia on 2 May 1928 and is buried in East End Cemetery with members of his family.

His daughter, Mary Goodwin Lacy, served as the first full-time librarian of Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1903 to 1910. She moved to Washington, D. C. in 1910 to assume a position in the United States Department of Agriculture Libaries. She worked in the reference and research department and also compiled several bibliographies. In 1921 she was assigned to the Bureau of Agricultural Economics Library where she stayed until her retirement in 1943. Lacy was a member of the American Library Association, the Special Library Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Agriculture History Association. She is buried in East End Cemetery in Wytheville, Virginia.

Scope and Content

The collection consists a booklet, travel diary, and address book. An 1894 religious booklet of 13 pages by Rev. Thomas H. Lacy entitled "My Secret with the Lord " contains prayers and meditations.

Librarian Mary Goodwin Lacy recorded her June 1930 journey to California in a travel diary. Leaving Washington, D. C. on 19 June 1930, Lacy writes detailed entries describing her train trip across the country to attend the American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Los Angeles. She provides her impressions on the conference, people, climate, and historic and natural sites in California and her journey west. The diary ends with an entry on 29 June 1930 while she was in San Francisco.

Frances Eppes Lacy recorded addresses of friends and relatives in a book she received from Bessie Edwards in November 1933.