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An only child, Rebecca Fitzgerald Lipscomb faced a daunting challenge after her mother died in 2013. The family’s Charlotte Street home in Fredericksburg was full of clothes, furniture, and household items, not to mention memories of a happy childhood and loving parents.
But there was a whole lot more than might have been in most homes, because Rebecca’s mother was a unique sort of keeper, a woman whose life’s work was devoted to historical and genealogical research. Left behind in Lipscomb’s care were so many files and boxes of all shapes and sizes, the legacy of her mother’s four decades of work ferreting out the stories of people from earlier times.
Ruth Coder Fitzgerald and her husband, Barry, moved to Fredericksburg in the late 1960s after four years in the Philippines as Peace Corps volunteers. A native of Missouri, Mrs. Fitzgerald was a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism. Barry was a longtime staff photographer for The Free Lance-Star, and Mrs. Fitzgerald took to her adopted hometown and became intrigued with its past.
By the early 1970s, her research interests focused on a project that would become her most important contribution, “A Different Story: A Black History of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania.” Based on five years of research, the self-published, 326-page book traces Black history in the area from the 1600s to the 1930s.
Never dreaming she could attract a publisher, the Fitzgeralds took out a loan to pay for the printing of 3,000 copies. “A Different Story” was soon recognized as the definitive work on Black history in the region.
In the book’s acknowledgements, Mrs. Fitzgerald said she was initially encouraged to write the book by a friend, but in an interview with The Free Lance-Star, she said that she wished to balance the historical record that had previously focused entirely on the “the white upper class.”
Her book recognizes and names hundreds of Black people who lived and worked in the Fredericksburg area over three centuries. She tells stories of enslaved people, free blacks, and rebellions in the antebellum period, and focuses on reconstruction, churches, schools, and politics in the post-Civil War era. Mrs. Fitzgerald also arranged for written contributions from several prominent Black members of the community: Dr. Phillip Y. Wyatt, Mrs. Gladys Poles Todd, and former city mayor, the Rev. Lawrence A. Davis.
The majority of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s research materials involving local history found a home at the Heritage Center. She donated a lot of documents to the center before her death, and her daughter followed suit while cleaning out her home, primarily keeping only family genealogical information.
A search for “Ruth Coder Fitzgerald” in the center’s collection turns up 164 results, which includes eight boxes containing nothing but her research notes for the book. Other materials are varied in scope – documents pertaining to the development of the Douglas and Winchester streets neighborhood, the Underground Railroad, African American businesses in Fredericksburg, Black soldiers in the American Revolution, photographs, newspaper clippings, death notices, and files pertaining to individuals and their families.
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There are copies of minutes from meetings in 1897-1901 of the Rock Spring Lyceum, a debating society for Black residents of the Massaponax area. One of the Lyceum’s chairmen was John J. Wright, noted Black educator for whom a Spotsylvania school was named.
For all the wealth of materials in the center’s Fitzgerald collection, there is one item which inexplicably wound up in a box of odds and ends sold at auction sometime after her death.
Cathy Dyson of The Free Lance-Star recently covered the remarkable story. Karen Peyton of Colonial Beach bought a box at a sale in Fredericksburg in 2013 and discovered a ringed binder containing a manuscript which she assumed was someone’s college paper. She decided to keep the package and research it later, but five years went by before she thought of it again.
When she looked at in June 2018, she realized it was a book manuscript with Ruth Fitzgerald's name on it, and her first thought was to contact the Central Rappahannock Regional Library to see if anyone there was interested.
Nancy Moore was definitely interested. After retiring as managing editor at The Free Lance-Star, Ms. Moore was in charge of the library’s Virginiana Room, its repository of genealogical and historical materials. She had known both Ruth and Barry Fitzgerald for many years and she quickly recognized the significance of the manuscript.
Rebecca Fitzgerald Lipscomb also knew how important it was. The manuscript was a book her mother had written in the early 1990s, but had never been able to get published.
Thus ensued a commitment to publish “Rachel’s Dream,” an effort spearheaded by Ms. Moore and sponsored by the library, which applied for and received a $3,500 grant in Virginia Heritage Funds from the Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region.
The project took five years, owing to COVID-19 and other factors, but Mrs. Fitzgerald’s book – written 30-some years ago – is now in print and available for purchase at the library and on Amazon.com.
“Rachel’s Dream: A Young Girl’s Quest for True Freedom” is set in 1832 in Fredericksburg and tells the story of a 12-year-old free Black girl who dreams of becoming a teacher. Although Rachel is not enslaved, she nonetheless faces challenges in a town dominated by white people who don’t believe Blacks should be taught to read and write.
At Mrs. Lipscomb’s request, the library will use proceeds from sales of the book to support Black History Month and multicultural education.
Mrs. Lipscomb said she was aware of the book when her mother was writing it, and she remembers how affectionately her mother thought of the characters. “She always thought James Earle Jones would have been perfect to play the grandfather when it was made into a movie,” she said. “She would have been so pleased to have the book published. This is just a wonderful gift.”
Mrs. Lipscomb says she has no idea how the manuscript wound up in a box at auction. She recalls that there were several bound copies, and she thinks she might have one packed away in a closet at her home in Birmingham, Ala. But she really thought she had given everything relevant to the Heritage Center.
Manuscript or not, the Heritage Center’s collection is richer for the gift of Ruth Coder Fitzgerald and her materials, which are available to the public for research.
Susan Scott Neal
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