Colonial Dames 17th Century installs new officers
May 25—THOMASVILLE- The John Lee of Nansemond Chapter, National Society Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century, installed its new slate of officers for the 2023-2025 term. The installation ceremony was held at The Plaza Restaurant and conducted by Kay G. Ragan, President of the John Sumner Chapter, Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century, Albany, Georgia. Ragan has served at the State of Georgia level as Auditor, Flag Custodian Chairman, Finance Committee member, and is currently serving as a Bylaws Committee member. She is a member of eight lineage societies and was accompanied by Sandi Driskill, President of the Pierre Robert Chapter, Daughters of the American Colonists, Albany, Georgia.
The new officers are Jinanne Parrish, President; Kathy Mills, Vice President; Linda Solana, Treasurer; Nancy Pyle, Registrar; Mary Margaret Quiggle, Secretary; Anita Ward, Chaplain; Pamela Tucker, Historian; Jane Bennett, Librarian; Dr. MaryFriend Carter, Parliamentarian, and Miriam Powell, Auditor.
The John Lee of Nansemond Chapter was organized in April, 2007, by Rosemary Lee Henderson and named for Henderson's ancestor, John Lee, who helped settle the Colony of Virginia, coming from England to America in 1675. Nansemond County, Virginia, was named for the Nansemond Indians who inhabited the area along the Nansemond River. Nansemond County was absorbed by surrounding counties in Virginia in 1974. The John Lee Chapter is one of twenty-one chapters in Georgia with about eight hundred members and nation-wide about nine thousand members.
The National Society Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century was established on June 15, 1915, in San Francisco, California, at the International Genealogical Congress at the Panama Pacific Exposition. The Georgia Society was established November 17, 1931, with eighty-seven members by Mrs. Patrick Bryant at "Wingfield", the Atlanta home of Mrs. John M. Slaton, wife of two term Georgia Governor, John M. Slaton.
The National Society is an organization of women eighteen years of age or over who are lineal descendants of an ancestor who resided in one of the thirteen original colonies and performed a service before 1701. The headquarters of the Society is located in Washington, D. C. Constructed in 1884, the headquarters building is historically significant and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The goals of the organization are to preserve historic sites and records, to foster interest in colonial research, to aid in the education of the youth, to commemorate the noble and historic deeds of the nation's ancestors who founded this great Republic, to maintain zealously the principles of virtue, courage and patriotism of ancestors, and to maintain a library of heraldry and of seventeenth century American colonial data.
