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Poignant Yet Powerful


The spectacles, or eye glasses, (circa 1870-1900) were donated just this morning. They are so delicate and represent a snippet of an American story. These spectacles were worn by Aunt Teeny Duncan whose daughter, Lizzie, raised the donor's mother, Katharine. Aunt Teeny was 16 in 1861 and enslaved on the Duncan plantation in Luray, Virginia. She took her former owner's last name after the war's end. Aunt Teeny was the mother of Lizzie, who raised Katharine Mitchell-Hubbard. She spent the last 4 or 5 years of her life living with the donor's family. She died in 1924 or 1925 at the age of either 76 or 77.


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