Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990 TAG: 9004110597
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By all accounts, she was a humble schoolteacher in what was then Big Lick and died 90 years ago with little fanfare.
But because her grandfather coined a now-famous line that became the battle cry for a nation, Hambrick is getting a new tombstone at her grave in the old City Cemetery on Tazewell Avenue.
It will not, however, read: "Give me liberty or give me death."
Instead, a simple granite marker will replace the weathered and crumbling piece of marble that stands there.
And there will be no mention of Patrick Henry.
The story behind Hambrick's tombstone began last January when members of the Margaret Lynn Lewis Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution contacted the Student Government Association at Patrick Henry High School.
They proposed that the SGA maintain the grave as a community service project - an unusual request, according to SGA President Danny Felty.
He said traditionally the SGA holds a canned-food drive, volunteers its members at local soup kitchens and hospitals or performs some other community function.
"But this was different," Felty said. "We thought it was kind of important in that she was a relative of the school's namesake."
The SGA membership voted to buy the new marker, which will cost $494, and organize a ceremony to unveil it on May 29, Patrick Henry's birthday.
Felty along with SGA Vice President Whitney Matthews, her sister Ashley Matthews and Melissa Byrd were appointed to head the committee in charge of the project and the ceremony.
They plan to invite Mayor Noel Taylor, members of the Roanoke City Council and School Board, Superintendent Frank Tota, representatives of the DAR and others.
"I don't think they're really aware of it though," Felty said. "We haven't made any announcements yet or sent invitations or anything."
He hopes they'll all attend and he's confident that they'll show up. But he won't be disappointed if they don't.
"The show must go on, I guess. We're going to go ahead and do it anyway," he said.
Felty isn't sure yet what will be involved in the unveiling ceremony. He would like to include some background information on Hambrick, but details about her life are difficult to find.
He also isn't sure what the proper procedure is for dedicating a tombstone.
"Do you need a reverend to perform any services or say any prayers?" he said. "We still need to find out about that. Maybe the mayor could provide a dual service."
What little is known about Hambrick is that she was born in Campbell County and lived from 1838 to 1900.
Her father was Alexander Spottswood Henry, one of 16 children of Patrick Henry. Alexander Henry married Dorothea Dandridge and Maria Antoinette Henry was their eighth child.
She married Andrew Lovingston Hambrick on Dec. 26, 1872. He was 48. She was 29. It was his second marriage and her first.
Hambrick was a Civil War veteran who lost an arm in the Battle of Seven Pines. His only known occupation was that of a mason, according to his great-granddaughter Helen Brittain Ringler of Richmond.
He died about 1890. After his death, city directories from the 1890s show Maria Hambrick "boarding" at 394 Seventh Ave. S.W. and 35 Marshall Ave. S.W.
But she eventually went to live with her brother near Elliston, according to a letter by local historian Lee Pendleton filed in the Virginia Room at the Roanoke City Library.
"John Robert Henry was the third child. He had a sister who lived in Roanoke who spent the last days with her brother in apparently destitute circumstances," Pendleton wrote in the letter.
How the granddaughter of Patrick Henry came to be destitute is not known. She was buried next to her husband in Lot 28 of the City Cemetery, apparently without a grave marker.
The marker that stands at her grave was erected between 1903 and 1906 by the Margaret Lynn Lewis Chapter of the DAR. A foot stone was added by the chapter in 1969.
The tombstone was split into two pieces some time ago and the city repaired it with mortar. The original writing is not legible.
The cost of the new tombstone is being covered by the Patrick Henry SGA, which raised most of the money through a candy sale. Tim Bane, SGA sponsor, said he hopes the project will continue.
"We'd like to keep an eye on the gravesite," he said. "It's not something that's going to end in May. We want it to be there for students to enjoy in the future."
by CNB