The UncommonWealth is off today. We hope you are enjoying time with family and friends, or perhaps a good book. See you soon!
Jessica Tyree BurgessDecember 25, 2019
In cataloging the papers of Grayson B. Boyer (1915-1970) of Grayson County, Virginia, one cannot help but notice the dramatically-titled and cheekily-illustrated “Certificate of Survival”…
Jessica Tyree BurgessJanuary 28, 2015
Here on Out of the Box we like to take the occasional Friday to let patrons of the Library of Virginia tell our readers of…
Jessica Tyree BurgessDecember 12, 2014
Today we bring you another installment of our Big Find Friday series. While we love those “Eureka!” moments where a patron finds the exact, obscure…
Jessica Tyree BurgessSeptember 5, 2014
Here at the Library of Virginia, we love seeing patrons locate records that answer a long-held question, fill in branches of the family tree, or otherwise connect the…
Jessica Tyree BurgessMay 30, 2014
When John Hager Randolph Jr. wrote to his parents in Richmond near the end of his Virginia Military Institute career in the spring of 1942,…
Jessica Tyree BurgessApril 2, 2014
Most of us—whether we were alive at the time of the event or learned about it from parents and grandparents, books, magazine articles, documentaries, and…
Jessica Tyree BurgessNovember 20, 2013
In 1964, the Children’s Home Society of Virginia (CHS) sought to make use of the power of radio, requesting some air time from WRVA to…
Jessica Tyree BurgessAugust 21, 2013
Having trouble stretching that dime in tough economic times? Need some inspiration figuring out how to feed hungry mouths on a budget? For advice you…
Jessica Tyree BurgessJuly 10, 2013
Editor’s Note: This blog post originally appeared in the Summer 2002 issue of The Delimiter, an in-house Library newsletter, and has been edited slightly. Among the vast…
Jessica Tyree BurgessApril 17, 2013
If you’ve been an Out of the Box reader for a while, you may remember this September 2011 article about a Norfolk, Virginia, girl and her World War II-era…
Jessica Tyree BurgessFebruary 4, 2013
You have no idea how awfully much I hated to leave you…Even if I can’t hear from you just now I feel sure you are…
Jessica Tyree BurgessNovember 28, 2012
It is rare for anyone to be directly involved in an event that can be labeled, without exaggeration, a turning point in world history. The…
Jessica Tyree BurgessJune 6, 2012
In late 1943, Leona Robbins was 12 years old and living in Norfolk, Virginia. Her neighbor and close family friend, Army Lieutenant Charles Field, was…
Jessica Tyree BurgessSeptember 14, 2011
