Shaun Spencer-Hester

Wednesday, September 21, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Dewey Gotwald Center
Free of charge, limited seating

Life, Legacy and Garden of Anne Spencer

Shaun Spencer-Hester, honorary member of Hillside Garden Club is the Executive Director and Curator of the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her presentation will provide insight into the life, legacy and garden of her grandmother, Anne Spencer, an internationally recognized African-American poet of the Harlem Renaissance period.

Anne Spencer created a true “gardener’s garden” over the course of her lifetime. It inspired her poetry and served as a refuge during the troubled, segregated times in which she lived and wrote. Shaun oversees the day-to-day operations of The Anne Spencer House & Garden in Lynchburg. She has curated the collection of furnishings, textiles, artwork, collectibles and antiques that remained in the home at Anne’s death in 1975. 

An amateur horticulturist and landscape designer with a talent for garden structure and plant selection, Anne Spencer once described her Lynchburg garden as “half my world.” She was the first Virginian and first African American to have her poetry included in the Norton Anthology of American Poetry. Anne and her husband made their home a center of community activity. The Spencer property, once frequented by such notables as George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall and W.E.B. DuBois, is a Virginia Historic Landmark and is included in the National Register of Historic Places.

Gallery photos credit Roger Foley.