Lucinda Lee
(b. c. 1764; possibly 1760; d. 1787 or later, documented survival)
BIRTH
Around 1764 (1760?)
PLACE
DEATH
1787 or later (documented survival)
PLACE
FAMILY
HOMES
POLITICAL VIEWS
WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE ADVOCATE
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
CHRISTIAN
EPISCOPALIAN
MEMBERSHIPS
EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAGUE OF VIRGINIA MEMBER, NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION CONVENTION DELEGATE, ROANOKE EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAGUE VICE PRESIDENT, ROANOKE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS CHAIR, ROANOKE YWCA COFOUNDER, ROANOKE YWCA PRESIDENT, SAINT JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH ROANOKE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, VIRGINIA LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS FOUNDING PARTICIPANT
AWARDS
Lucinda Lee Orr, daughter of Thomas Ludwell Lee and Mary Aylett, kept a journal of visits among Virginia relatives and friends. Her observations describe dancing, clothes, novels, courtship and household hospitality. Emily V. Mason published it in 1871 as Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782, but scholarship dates it to 1787. She married John Dalrymple Orr. Her birth is variously estimated around 1760 or 1764; neither estimate rests on a verified birth record.
EARLY LIFE
Lucinda Lee, later Lucinda Lee Orr, was a daughter of Thomas Ludwell Lee and Mary Aylett. Her birth may have been around 1764: historian Alan Kulikoff describes her as eighteen during visits in 1782. A family compilation instead gives 1760. Neither estimate has been confirmed by an original birth record, and the journal’s chronology needs further checking. Her journal records visits among Virginia relatives and friends.
Lucinda Lee Orr’s surviving journal describes her social visits, reading, friendships and encounters within Virginia’s gentry households. Emily V. Mason published the fragment in 1871 under the title Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782. It preserves a woman’s account of everyday life and family society. No independent public office is established for her in the consulted sources.
CAREER
DEATH
Lucinda Lee Orr's final illness and death are not established by the surviving evidence reviewed for this record. The entry 1787 or later marks documented survival through the period associated with her journal, rather than a verified death date. She was the daughter of Thomas Ludwell Lee and Mary Aylett and the wife of John Dalrymple Orr. Her journal was published under an 1782 title, but later scholarship and cataloguing place the recorded visits in 1787. Neither date supplies an endpoint to her life. A cancer label in the inherited record cannot safely be used to create a terminal medical narrative while her identity and death evidence remain unresolved; similarly named women have been confused in earlier research. The journal records social visits, reading, dress, dancing, and courtship rather than a last illness. No reliable date, place, treatment history, deathbed account, or burial has been established for the diarist here. Her known activity is retained as a survival boundary, with the final chapter acknowledged as missing.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
101028
