Agnes Graham Sanders Riley Papers 1918-2002, Undated.

Access and use

Location of collection:
Wytheville Community College
F.B. Kegley Library
Wytheville Community College
Smyth Hall, Room 103
1000 East Main Street
Wytheville, VA 24382
Contact for questions and access:
POC: William A. “Bill” Veselik
Phone: (276) 223-4876
POC: George Mattis
Phone: (276) 223-4744
Fax: (276) 223-4745

Summary

Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

The Papers are arranged in three series. Series I, Genealogy consists of five folders that contain information on the Campbell, Graham, Kincannon, Newell, and Sanders families. Series II, Publications, contains copies of various articles written and collected by Agnes Graham Sanders Riley pertaining to her work as a professional chemist and amateur historian. Finally, Series III, Miscellaneous Records, contains copies of her curriculum vitae, list of publications, and copies of histories of the University of Kentucky Hospital Auxiliary and the University of Kentucky Woman's Club.

Biographical / historical:

The daughter Edwin Hanson Sanders (1871-1948) and Elizabeth Graham (1870-1956), Agnes Graham Sanders Riley was born on 13 February 1902 in Wytheville, Virginia. She was the granddaughter of Andrew Tate Sanders (1827-1877), Shipton Kincannon Curran Sanders (1848-1933), David Pierce Graham (1838-1898), and Nancy Montgomery Tate Graham (1843-1923).

Agnes graduated from Max Meadows High School in 1920 as valedictorian and Hollins College in 1924 with a bachelors degree in chemistry. She continued her education at the University of Chicago where she graduated with a masters degree in chemistry in 1925. Unable to pursue her doctoral degree because of her family's limited financial resources, Sanders embarked upon a teaching career. She taught chemistry at Hollins College (1925-1930) and the Newcomb College of Tulane University (1932-1936). She also worked as a research assistant in the department. During World War II, she taught chemistry to soldiers enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Program at the University of Kentucky.

Sanders met Dr. Herbert Parkes Riley, of Brooklyn and Mount Temple, New YOrk, at Tulane University. They married on 21 August 1935 at Anchor and Hope Presbyterian Church, Max Meadows, Virginia. Riley, a botanist who received his doctorate from Princeton University, taught at the University of Washington in Seattle and then at the University of Kentucky where he taught and supervised the department of botany. He retired from teaching and research in 1974; he died on 22 March 1988 in Lexington, Kentucky. Their only child, William Parkes Riley, was born on 15 August 1941 in Seattle, Washington.

As faculty wives were banned from teaching, Agnes Riley embraced volunteering with active participation in the University of Kentucky Woman's Club and the University of Kentucky Medical School Hospital Auxiliary as well as the American Cancer Society.

She also wrote numerous articles on colonial Virginia and Southwest Virginia history for the Wythe County Historical Review, National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and the Historical Society of Washington County Bulletin. She also was a member of the Wythe County Historical Society, Virginia Historical Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Colonial Dames of America.

She also maintained membership in the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Iota Sigma Pi, a national chemical honor society for women.

Agnes Graham Sanders Riley died on 3 October 2006 in Lexington, Kentucky. She was buried in the Graham family cemetery in the Graham's Forge community in Wythe County, Virginia.

Acquisition information:
Donated by Agnes Graham Sanders Riley in 2004.
Physical description:
31 folders.