North Carolina native Lavinia "Venie" Ellis Roberts (1833-1923) was an author, local historian, and horticulturist. She was born March 14, 1833 in New Bern, North Carolina as the daughter of the wealthy merchant and politically well-connected James Carney Cole (1795-1864) and Mary Catherine Snead (1799-1862). She attended the Burwell School in Hillsborough, North Carolina, a finishing school for young women, followed by two other finishing schools in Philadelphia, Madame Gardel's and Madame Picot's. In 1858, Roberts married Frederick Cox Roberts (1836-1911), a lawyer from New Bern.
As with many during the time period, Roberts' life was upended by the events of the Civil War. During the Battle of New Bern in March 1862, Roberts fled with three of her young children to Hillsborough. She returned briefly to New Bern during the occupation by Union troops before moving to a small farm in Warren County, North Carolina with her children and several enslaved persons. Suffering from tuberculosis, her husband was discharged from the Confederate Army in 1863 and Roberts nursed him back to health while running the farm and raising their children. Probably sometime during war, Roberts began writing her memoir documenting life before the war and her experiences during. At war's end, the Roberts family returned to New Bern to find their home destroyed, but quickly rebuilt their home and reestablished their status as influential members in the city.
Roberts was active in her community, writing local history articles, and working to memorialize the Confederacy through her work in the United Daughters of the Confederacy. An avid gardener, Roberts' abilities as a horticulturist are noted in several biographies, along with her artistic abilities as painter and singer. She died June 23, 1923 and is buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery in New Bern. Roberts was preceded in death by her husband and her son John Mushro Roberts (1860-1865). She was survived by her four remaining children: Mary Catharine Roberts (1858-1951), Lucretia Lydia Roberts (1861-1949), James Cole Roberts (1863-1930), Lavinia Cole Simmons (1865-1942), and Anna Boyd (1867-1954).
In 1957, a photograph of her garden was published in Popular Gardening and one of her watercolor paintings was featured on the cover of the magazine. Sometimes credited with introducing the spider lily or Lycoris radiata to American gardens, her influence was recognized when a sculpture of the flower was installed on the waterfront in New Bern in 2011. For a more extensive biography of Roberts, see the articles cited below.
Sources:
"Lavinia Ellis Cole." Burwell School History. https://burwellschoolhistory.org/research/pPerson.php?id=1283. Accessed March 31, 2023.
"Lavinia Ellis "Venie" Cole Roberts." Findagrave.com. Accessed March 31, 2023.
Hand, Bill. "The Renaissance Life of Venie Roberts." Sun Journal. Gannett Company, Inc., May 21, 2017, New Bern, North Carolina.
February 1, 2023, 1.5 cubic feet; Collection includes primarily handwritten notes on lined paper with notebooks, typescripts, correspondence, newspaper clippings, genealogical material devoted to the topic of the life before, during, and after the Civil War and family history and in New Bern, North Carolina. Gift of Alex Albright.
Gift of Alex Albright
Processed by John Dunning March 2023.
Carolina and the Southern Cross. Edited by L.V. Archbell. vols. 11-12, no. 1. North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Kinston, N.C., 1914. Paper copies available in North Carolina Collection, see here for catalog record. Full text electronic copies also availabe here.