Darlene Dragavon takes walks around her neighborhood just off South Providence Road in North Chesterfield pretty much every day.
“I walk the area a lot. I'm usually paying more attention to the natural things,” said Dragavon. “I go out to get distracted by the wildlife.”
On one of these strolls, just around the block over on Clovertree Court, she noticed a small granite marker embedded in a field. The platter-sized stone surrounded by grass is easy to miss but it still caught her eye.
It reads: “In memory of Joan C. Hall.”
“I decided, shoot: I'm curious about that,” Dragavon said. “Somebody loved her, appreciated, respected her, you know?”
The first step in finding Joan C. Hall — after a quick internet search — was to contact the county, followed by the Virginia Department of Historical Resources.
But those were dead ends.
Then, a promising lead came from the Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia.
The all-volunteer nonprofit holds the keys to Chesterfield’s past.
“The library has about 25,000 items in it. And 99% of it was donated by local residents, said Liess van der Linden-Brusse, chair of the library committee. “It’s specific to Chesterfield County, but it also has some information of surrounding counties simply because we split off from Henrico, back in 1749.”
All these items are housed near the county seat inside the old Trinity Church, which was built in 1887, she said. And they include books, maps, family history and a veterans database. There’s also an expansive file on cemeteries, which is what Rachel Lipowicz is in charge of.
“We have information on over 600 cemeteries in Chesterfield County. The bulk of them are family cemeteries,” she said.
Lipowicz knows her cemeteries and likes solving mysteries. Scattered on her desk are a handful of papers about Hall, including a printout of the marker's picture.
“It's small, and you see stones like this in in graveyards all the time,” she said. “Usually, there's dates on it. I thought to myself, 'OK, so why? Why is this stone where it is?'”
She had a few ideas.
“It could be there because it's a memorial stone. So a stone just to commemorate her. It could have been dumped there,” she said.
Her first step was to go to the county's website because sometimes it lists former cemeteries. After not seeing any, she determined that Hall wasn’t buried there.
“So my process next is, 'I have to find Joan C. Hall.' I didn't go to Ancestry first, because they usually go by maiden name. So I went to newspapers.com, and I looked up Joan C. Hall and I got a hit,” said Lipowicz.
It was from a 1986 Richmond Times-Dispatch article about the Richmond Council of Women’s Groups celebrating 50 years of service.
“Here's Joan right here. She was the president,” she said.
According to the article, Hall was president of the council for two terms. And her maiden name was Colby.
“I was able to go back to Ancestry and say, 'OK, so I wonder if she has passed away,'” Lipowicz said. “I did find a death certificate for her. She died a few years later; 1988.”
Lipowicz printed out Hall's death and marriage certificates as well as her obituary. Besides her stint as president of the Richmond council for women, Hall was also a senior board member of Children’s Hospital and worked with Meals on Wheels.
She's buried at Sunset Memorial Park near Chester.
“She was 38. Her mother died 10 years later, so they are side by side,” said Lipowicz.
Ultimately, the stone that Darlene Dragavon found embedded in the field of grass is a commemorative stone.
“When you look at her death certificate, where did she live? She lived at 7966 Clovertree Ct. So that's why this stone is there. I'm gonna say that that was placed in her memory,” Lipowicz said.
This story was produced as part of the new VPM News series Curious Commonwealth.
