Jessica Tyree Burgess – The UncommonWealth

The Stacks

Here we are as in olden days

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

Education & Programming The Stacks

"Straight to the Source" conference coming to the Library of Virginia

We are excited to announce that the Friends of the Virginia State Archives 23rd Annual Spring Conference will be held at the Library of Virginia on…

Jessica Tyree BurgessMarch 9, 2015

Certificate of Survival issued to Grayson B. Boyer, 2 May 1945.

Archives

A ‘Salty’ take on survival

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

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections The Stacks

Big Find Friday: Reference staff to the rescue

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

Archives

Big Find Friday: You can’t always get what you want, but…

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

Archives

Big Find Friday: A voice from the past

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

Archives

“There’s only one thing I don’t like about Combat–It Ain’t Safe!”

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

Manuscripts & Special Collections

News of a tragedy

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

Manuscripts & Special Collections

A Child is Waiting

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

Manuscripts & Special Collections

Feed your family on the cheap!

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

Manuscripts & Special Collections

From the files of a funeral home

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

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections

LVA in the UK

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

Photos of Virginia Lee Minor and Robert B. Roosevelt Jr.

Manuscripts & Special Collections

"I really love you in my funny selfish way"

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

Manuscripts & Special Collections

"…we all have tiers in our eyes and our hearts are in the pit of our stomacks"

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

Archives

New friends in wartime, an ocean apart

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