Class Note 1993
Issue
Nov - Dec 2015
I’d like to thank my former housemate and good friend Lynn Rainville for making this update easy for me by getting herself featured in The Washington Post recently. Her work as a professor of humanities at Sweet Briar College has led her to help African American families descended from the enslaved community on the Sweet Briar Plantation rediscover where their ancestors lived.
Described by the Post as a “northerner,” Lynn became curious about the past of the 114-year-old women’s college in Sweet Briar, Virginia, after she joined the faculty in 2001. “I arrived at Sweet Briar having spent two years back at Hanover, teaching in the anthropology department,” she told me. “I’d only read about slavery in books, never walked across plantation fields, genuflected in a slave cemetery or toured the ‘big house’ where the white masters lived.”
She began an archeo-historic project on the former antebellum plantation that has lasted for 15 years. She said she has uncovered stories and archival materials that document the lives of African Americans on a Southern plantation and their transition to paid employees for another century and a half at Sweet Briar College.
Sweet Briar College made national news when its president announced that the college would close forever at the end of August, though it will be open for at least one more year.
If the college closes Lynn says she’ll continue working as a public historian and digital humanist, writing books and articles about Virginia’s past, studying centennial efforts to commemorate World War I, curating exhibits for museums and writing up her 15 years of Sweet Briar research.
She has two 4 1/2-year-old daughters, Celine and Juliet. Her husband, Baron, founded a tech startup in Charlottesville and hob-nobs with the likes of Lew Cirne.
One quick update from me: I’m happy to report that I have a fully functional 5-year-old once again. The body cast and wheelchair weren’t fun, but the boy’s body did what it was supposed to do and knit his femur bone back together. Thanks to all of you who sent kind words, and as always, please send me your news!
—Suzanne Spencer Rendahl, 224 Route 120, Plainfield, NH 03781; suzandj@comcast.net
Described by the Post as a “northerner,” Lynn became curious about the past of the 114-year-old women’s college in Sweet Briar, Virginia, after she joined the faculty in 2001. “I arrived at Sweet Briar having spent two years back at Hanover, teaching in the anthropology department,” she told me. “I’d only read about slavery in books, never walked across plantation fields, genuflected in a slave cemetery or toured the ‘big house’ where the white masters lived.”
She began an archeo-historic project on the former antebellum plantation that has lasted for 15 years. She said she has uncovered stories and archival materials that document the lives of African Americans on a Southern plantation and their transition to paid employees for another century and a half at Sweet Briar College.
Sweet Briar College made national news when its president announced that the college would close forever at the end of August, though it will be open for at least one more year.
If the college closes Lynn says she’ll continue working as a public historian and digital humanist, writing books and articles about Virginia’s past, studying centennial efforts to commemorate World War I, curating exhibits for museums and writing up her 15 years of Sweet Briar research.
She has two 4 1/2-year-old daughters, Celine and Juliet. Her husband, Baron, founded a tech startup in Charlottesville and hob-nobs with the likes of Lew Cirne.
One quick update from me: I’m happy to report that I have a fully functional 5-year-old once again. The body cast and wheelchair weren’t fun, but the boy’s body did what it was supposed to do and knit his femur bone back together. Thanks to all of you who sent kind words, and as always, please send me your news!
—Suzanne Spencer Rendahl, 224 Route 120, Plainfield, NH 03781; suzandj@comcast.net