Ivy Talks: Tapes in the Attic and the Stories They Tell

special collections at uva

Come celebrate Black History Month with Ivy Creek!  Learn about the treasured tapes found in a 2015 cleanup of the Ivy Creek Education Building.  Ivy Creek historians, Dede Smith and Alice Cannon, will lead us through samples of recordings made in the 1980s that detail memories of the River View Farm property owned by Hugh Carr, an emancipated slave, and the Carr-Greer family.  Grandsons, Benjamin and Charles Whitten, recall their childhood visits to the farm and extended family in the 1920s and 30s.  The tapes of James Butler, extension agent for the African American farming community in the 50s who succeeded Conly Greer, take us on a tour through the barn and his recollections of it during the Greer time.  The information contained in these tapes led to changes in the interpretation of the barn and a better understanding of the life at River View Farm and the people connected to it.