Courtesy photo.
The Office of Historic Alexandria shared the sad news that Anna Lynch passed away on Tuesday, July 18. She was a long-time volunteer and researcher with Alexandria Archaeology and other OHA sites. In her 29 years with OHA, she did everything – she excavated, mended pots, taught lessons, docented in the Museum, and conducted research.
Anna filled an important gap in our knowledge of a vital part of the City’s history with her three volume Compendium of Early African Americans in Alexandria, VA, published by Alexandria Archaeology. In 1994, Anna was awarded the T. Michael Miller History Award for her valuable contributions to the study of Alexandria’s history – at Gadsby’s Tavern, Alexandria Black History Museum, and Alexandria Archaeology. The Alexandria Convention and Visitor’s Bureau gave Anna the Hospitality Award in 1996. Anna was twice awarded the John S. Glaser Award (in 1996 and 2011) for contributions to the appreciation and conservation of Alexandria Archaeology and its place in the continuity of the human experience. She also received Alexandria Archaeology’s Volunteer of the Year award in 2012 for contributing 888 hours to Alexandria Archaeology.
Anna was also nominated for the “Living Legends of Alexandria” project. The Alexandria Archaeology Museum guest book is filled with praise for Anna – her engaging style and depth of knowledge affected how so many visitors experienced Alexandria’s rich history and archaeology. She was also an engaging poet, and after Alexandria’s oldest known human artifact, a 13,000-year-old “Clovis point” was discovered at the site of the Freedmen’s Cemetery in 2007, she penned this poem in honor of the OHA team at Archaeology:
Show no dinosaur bones to an Archaeologist,
Save those bones for a Paleontologist.
But this we know and it’s a fact,
archaeologists dig and screen for artifacts.
Whether they are bones, rocks, glass or made of clay
Show a Clovis point to an archaeologist
And you’ve made his or her day!
Anna Lynch will be fondly remembered.
