3
Documenting
the American
South
5
Nancy Cobb
Lilly Funds
6-7
Retirements
8-9
North Carolina
Literary Festival
10
"Tell Me
a Story"
1'tiblished by the
Friends of the Library
Academic Affairs
Library
The University
of North C arolina
at Chapel Hill
Volume 11, number 1
Summer 2002
Library Receives $2.2 Million Bequest
After more than forty years in the Tar I led stale,
Eleanor ( hurch Wagstaff considered North ( ar-
olina home and the University her adopted alma
mater.
Upon her death in February 2001, Mrs. Wagstaff
honored her late husband, Thomas, a graduate of
lJIN<-< hapel Hill, with a bequest of $2.2
million to the Academic Affairs Library.
The gift, the second largest in the
Library's history, establishes the
Thomas C- and Eleanor C.
Wagstall Library Endowment
Fund.
Born and raised in Mas
sachusetts, I leanor Wagstaff
attended Smith College in
Northampton. Upon grad¬
uation, she went on to earn
a degree in library science
from Columbia University
in New York. Eleanor served
<is<i librarian at several schools
in Massachusetts before
moving to North Carolina in
1935 to be the librarian at the
Asheville Farm School in Swan-
nanoa, now Warren Wilson College.
She then spent several years working as
t he assistant librarian at Mars 1 1 i IK Allege in
Mars Hill, N.C.
If was that hpr hiturp husband,
Thomas Clifton Wagstaff Jr., a native of Roxboro,
N.C. Wagstaff attended Mars Hill prior to transfer
ring to IJN< '-< ha pel I till, where he received a li.A,
in journalism in 1942.
"'I hey corresponded tor twenty years before they
decided to marry," says Robert "Mac" Wagstaff of
Roxboro '75, Thomas WagsLifi 's nephew. The couple
wed in 1961 — the first marriage for both of them —
and spent two years living in New York before relo¬
cating to Chapel Hill in 1963.
The Wagstaffs settled into a house On I layes Road
in Chapel 1 Jill's Glen Lennox neighborhood. An avid
gardener, Mrs. Wagstaff often walked to lire North
Carolina Botanical Garden, about a mile from her
home.
"Walking over here was her morning constitu¬
tional for many years," says Dot Wilbur-
Brooks, activities coordinator lor the
Botanical Garden. "I leanor spent a
lot of time here. She was a small
woman, and she loved to wear
capes. She would come dash¬
ing in here with a question
aboul a plant, with I icr tape
flapping behind tier."
Eleanor WagstalT was a
life member of the Chapel
Hill Garden Club, as well as
a member of the Chapel
I lill Bind Club, participating
in the Bird Club's annual
Christmas bird count each
year.
"Eleanor and Jean were
both very interested in garden¬
ing and in bird-watching," says
Pearson Stewart, whose late wife,
Jean, was a friend of Mrs. Wagstaff'*.
"They spent a lot of lime together in the
Garden ( tub, at the Botanical Garden, and on bird-
watching trips that they took together," he recalls
Mrs Wagstaff was also a talented and dedicated
photographer. She maintained membership in the
New York Slide Club from 1947 until her death and
was also a member ol the Photographic Society of
America. For many years prior to her death, the
North Carolina Council of Garden Clubs featured a
photograph taken by Mrs Wagstall in its annual cal
endar. "Eleanor was a very fine photographer," Stew¬
art says. "She took wonderful pictures of flowers
and especially of butterflies."
I'lriwnr IViTgsbijtjt
(wilimicd on next fKtgc)
