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This is a column I never expected to write. 

Elizabeth Overbey  Omohundro, fondly known to her friends and admirers as “Libby,” died on May 19, 2008, at the age of ninety-one. I received this news on my way to the annual workshop sponsored by the William and Mary Quarterly and the USC/Huntington Library Early Modern Studies Institute and held at the Huntington Library. Already in California, I cut my trip short so that I could return to Williamsburg to attend the memorial service in Gloucester, where Libby had lived for the past several years, and the graveside service in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery, where M. H. Omohundro, Jr., was laid to rest in 1999. Libby always seemed lively and full of talk whenever I visited her, and as far as I could tell, her fondness for reading mysteries had not diminished. Her unexpected death brought me a real sense of loss as well as a rekindling of many memories of the times I shared with M. H., with the two of them together, and after his death, with her.

I met M. H. in 1992, soon after I became director of the Institute. My predecessor, Thad Tate, who had, during his tenure, become fast friends with this gentleman, introduced us, and before long, M. H. became a regular visitor to my office in Swem Library. A student at William and Mary in the mid-1920s, M. H. had subsequently ranged far and wide, enjoying a life that took him to the advertising business in New York City and eventually back to his native Virginia, where he wooed and won Libby Overbey, the witty and charming elementary school teacher who, from all reports, thoroughly enchanted every child she ever met.  They began their forty-four-year marriage by embarking on a trip around the world that became the first in an amazing series of travels. M. H.’s rollicking and well-told tales of their adventures made me feel as though I already knew the intrepid Mrs. Omohundro quite well by the time he got around to inviting me to join the two of them for martinis at the Williamsburg Lodge, a tête-a-tête that soon became a ritual whenever they motored down from Richmond in his formidable silver Buick LeSabre.
As much as I enjoyed hearing M. H.’s stories, our conversations encompassed more than that. He took great pride both in his Virginia heritage that began with the emigration of his ancestor, Richard Omohundro, to the Northern Neck in 1672 and in his Huguenot ancestry, maintaining vociferously that his last name, the precise derivation of which remains a mystery even to his family, had its origins among the French Protestants. He greatly admired the Institute for its emphasis on the early American past and for the standards of excellence that guided its work, although he now and again expressed his wish that the Quarterly would use bigger type—and occasionally publish an article on the Civil War. We did accommodate the first by selecting a slightly larger typeface, but as I told him every time he brought it up, the latter was never going to happen. Gracefully resigned to that reality, he contented himself with the exploits of early Virginia’s gentry, with William Byrd II a particular favorite, especially as treated by Ken Lockridge’s The Diary and Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674–1744, published by the Institute in 1987.Intrigued by genealogy, M. H. did not much care for what has become known as “Founders’ Chic”—I think his feisty nature made him turn up his nose at the faintest whiff of hagiography.  And even though the American Revolution was not “his war”—as you might expect from someone named Malvern Hill Omohundro,  Jr.—he supported the Institute generously and steadily for many years.

In 1993 the Institute celebrated the first fifty years of its existence by holding a conference, Through a Glass Darkly: Defining Self in Early America; by hosting an Associates reception in the diplomatic reception rooms of the United States Department of State; and by publishing a special issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, the Third Series of which had, like the Institute, begun in 1943. The last of these proved enormously significant in the Institute’s relationship with the Omohundros. Titled In Search of Early America: The William and Mary Quarterly, 1943–1993, the edition marked two anniversaries: the 300th year of the founding of the College of William and Mary in 1693 and the Institute’s half century. The eleven articles that comprised the publication were chosen by a poll of the current subscribers, who were asked to select the ten (a tie made it eleven) most significant pieces that had appeared in the journal’s Third Series. The essays represented, as I noted in my foreword, “the remarkable range of perspectives . . . the topics, the methodology, and the creative use of varied sources” that “suggest how research and writing about early America have developed” during the Institute’s initial fifty years, while postscripts provided by the nine authors still living “remind us of the politics of history.” Mike McGiffert, then in his twenty-first year as the Quarterly’s editor, described the eleven articles as “an ongoing meditation on the making and meaning of America,” and the postscripts as a means of bringing “the act of reflection up to date.” For M. H., who, as I noted above, had been a loyal and generous benefactor of the Institute since the early 1980s, the words that counted the most were these:

This book is dedicated to Malvern H. Omohundro, Jr., in grateful acknowledgement of his interest in and generous contributions to the past, present, and future work of the Institute of Early American History & Culture.

We presented the special Quarterly volume to M. H. at the reception that preceded the conference banquet for program participants. After dinner that evening, M. H. informed me and William and Mary president Tim Sullivan that he had unequivocally decided that he would leave the bulk of his estate to the Institute.

When the negotiations that finalized these intentions were completed in 1996, M. H. and Libby Omohundro announced their bequest. I still remember feeling a sense of enormous relief. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Institute had confronted a number of serious threats to its existence—those involving the Book Program were particularly formidable, but other components were also targeted. Even the heroic support of the two sponsors—the College of William and Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation—could not dispel the multiple dangers that constantly loomed on the horizon. The Omohundro bequest fundamentally changed that scenario, and though there have been desperate moments since, they never made me fear for the Institute’s survival. Although precisely what their generosity means for the Omohundro Institute will not be known for some time, its continuance in its present configuration is the gift that M. H. and Libby bestowed.

M. H. correctly understood that by attaching Omohundro to the Institute, he would ensure both the continued recognition of the family name of which he was so proud and the future of the oldest scholarly organization in the United States devoted entirely to advancing an understanding of the early American past. I heartily endorsed his sentiments, but I always believed that he and Libby would thrive long past my tenure as Director. I regret that this has turned out not to be true, and I know that all friends and constituents of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture join me in extending condolences to the families.