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Special Collections, Kegley Library, Wytheville Community College
Special Collections© 2011 By Wytheville Community College. All rights reserved.
Processed by: Cathy Carlson Reynolds
Collection is open to research.
There are no restrictions.
Mary Brown Cassell Diary, Mss Collection 2000.3, Kegley Library, Wytheville Community College, Wytheville, VA
Diary was purchased for the Kegley Library in September 2000.
Mary Brown Cassell was born on 12 October 1908 to Rev. Charles Willis Cassell and Helen Roberta Buchanan Cassell. Raised in Frederick County, Augusta County, and Page County, Virginia, she subsequently moved with her family to the small community of Konnarock in Grayson County where her father pastored a Lutheran congregation.
Cassell taught at the Konnarock Training School for Girls as well as public schools in Rural Retreat and Wytheville, Virginia. She never married and died 13 August 1979. Cassell is buried in Kimberlin Lutheran Church Cemetery in Wythe County.
Cassell
The diary has a five year format with four lines per page for each year. It is bound in black, embossed leather with a locking clasp.
Mary Brown Cassell recorded brief accounts of her daily activities from 1 January 1928 to 6 July 1931. Entries between January 1928 and January 1931 concern her studies, church activities, and social life while living in Luray and Page County, Virginia. Cassell started teaching at the Konnarock School for Girls on 5 January 1931 and subsequent entries focus on her professional and personal life in Grayson County.
Also included in this collection is a letter found in the diary from Midge [unknown], Monieri, Sotik, Kenya to Cassell dated 3 November 1933. The author discusses her concern at finding a job, the uncertainty of her relationship with "Tito" and an Armistice Day dance. Enclosed in the letter is an newspaper clipping announcing the wedding of Virginia Strickler to Charles T. Chapman of Luray, Virginia.
Charles Willis Cassell, father of Mary Brown Cassell, also kept a diary dated 1896 to 1898; see Mss. Collection 2000.2, Kegley Library, Wytheville Community College.