Thanks to everyone who stopped by the September 21st Oak Hill open house event to say hello and talk about my book, Oak Hill and the Ravensworth plantation, including at least two Fitzhugh descendants. The day also marked an end of sorts to the A Look Back at Braddock group, which Fairfax County Chairman Sharon Bulova created in 2004. Mary Lipsey, Val Vahouny and I, the last active members of the original 20-some-member oral history interview team, along with the team’s digital archivist Gil Donahue, thanked Sharon for creating ALBB in 2004 and her continuing leadership. In chronicling the history of the county’s Braddock District, we produced the book Braddock’s True Gold and coordinated a dozen years of annual Oak Hill open houses. The Fairfax County Park Authority, always a leading partner in the event, will continue sponsoring the event. ALBB’s research lives on in the companion website braddockheritage.org, jointly developed and hosted by George Mason University. Braddock’s True Gold is free to download from the site.

Mary Lipsey co-authored Braddock’s True Gold. Her recent book Aviation: From Curiosity To Reality explores the development of aviation from da Vinci, Samuel Langley, the Wright brothers, and William Christmas (the third American to fly) and others. It is available through her website https://mlhbooks.com. Coming soon is her new work chronicling women who made important contributions to improve the rights and lives of women, but have slipped from current memory.