Virginia randolph family
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Early Years and Family
Virginia Randolph was born in Richmond in May 1870 to Nelson Edward Randolph, a bricklayer and Richmond native, and Sarah Carter Randolph, a domestic worker and native of Campbell County. Her parents, both formerly enslaved, raised four daughters: Mary, Virginia, Sarah, and Emma. Although Randolph’s birth date is commonly given as June 8, 1874, the birth register for the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the City of Richmond reveals that her actual birth was in May 1870. This earlier birth year is also supported by the Freedman’s Bank account entry for Nelson Randolph, wherein he reports having two daughters, Mary and Virginia, in 1871. According to Randolph, her family suffered a major loss when her father died in 1874. Her youngest sister, Emma, was just one month old at the time. Her mother taught her daughters to knit and crochet and the importance of cleanliness.
Randolph attended Baker School, the first public school built for black students in Richmond, after the formation of the statewide public school system in 1870. She furthered her ed
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Virginia Estelle Randolph
Published September 8, 2021
Virginia Estelle Randolph (1870-1958) was an educator, community leader, and social activist whose influence as a teacher extended beyond her Henrico County, Virginia classroom. She was the first countywide Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teacher, a position developed by Booker T. Washington and others in 1908 and originally funded by the Quaker philanthropist Anna T. Jeanes to provide funding and support to Black teachers in the rural south. As a Jeanes teacher, Randolph traveled to over twenty elementary schools in Henrico County sharing her teaching methods, establishing school improvement leagues, and encouraging greater community involvement in the classroom.
Born in 1870 in Richmond to formerly enslaved parents, Randolph attended Baker School, the first public school built for Black students in Richmond. She was able to continue her education at the Richmond Colored Normal School, an institution of the Freedmen’s Bureau known for its rigorous academics and its teacher preparation component. From childhood, educatio
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Virginia Jefferson Randolph (1801-1882) was born at Monticello, the plantation home of her grandfather, Thomas Jefferson. She was the sixth child and fourth surviving daughter of Martha Jefferson Randolph and Thomas Mann Randolph. Like her siblings, Virginia spent much of her childhood at Monticello and occasionally accompanied her grandfather on trips to Poplar Forest, his plantation in Bedford County.[1]
Virginia shared an affinity for music with Jefferson, who bought her a pianoforte from Boston though he could ill afford it.[2] After a youthful romance and long engagement with Nicholas Philip Trist, the grandson of an old friend of Jefferson's, the two were married at Monticello on September 11, 1824. They remained there while Nicholas studied law and acted as Jefferson's secretary, and then again while Nicholas helped his brother-in-law, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, settle Jefferson's estate after his death in 1826.[3]
In 1828, Nicholas accepted a State Department clerkship in Washington, D.C. Virginia re
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