Frances Ledyard Ivy, 92, proponent for womens education and former president of the Mississippi University for Women Alumnae Association, died on December 3, 2008 in Columbus, Mississippi. Mrs. Ivy combined several careers, including writer, fund-raiser, educator, preservationist, civic leader, and churchwoman. Born on September 28, 1916, she was the youngest of five children of the late Joshua Heard Ledyard, the president and general manager of the Tupelo Cotton Mills, the citys largest employer, and his wife Anne Robins Ledyard. Her closest relatives included the Allen, Robins, and Ledyard families who helped build north Mississippi and Tupelo into a progressive center. At the Ledyard home on South Church Street, dinner-table conversations might include stories concerning her late great-uncle, Private John Allen, noted wit, lawyer and a longtime member of the U.S. Congress, or her uncle Will, D.W. Robins, farmer, banker and Tupelo mayor for 20 years. After attending the public schools in Tupelo, at age 16 Mrs. Ivy entered Mississippi State College for Women, an affiliation with the nations first state-supported institution of higher learning for women that would remain strong and productive for both. On graduation in the last days of the Depression in 1937, she taught briefly at a rural school in Marshall County, where she encountered poverty and illiteracy that would help prompt her volunteer activities in later years. For four years, she taught English and Speech in historically rich Columbus at S.D. Lee High School, where she met her future husband, Robert Adams Ivy, who taught history across the hall. In 1949, she and her husband restored one of the citys oldest homes, a modified log house formerly owned by Gen. Stephen D. Lee called Hickory Sticks, on whose grounds she established the Ivy Shop in the early 1950s, a distinctive store featuring books and the work of Mississippi artists. There she welcomed and got to know such Mississippi writers as the late Louise Crump, and Hodding and Betty Carter of Greenville, Wyatt Cooper of New York, the artist Hazel Guggenheim McKinley of New Orleans, Charlotte Capers, and Eudora Welty from Jackson, many of whom she hosted for literary evenings. She and her husband opened Hickory Sticks to the public through the annual pilgrimage to antebellum homes for 25 years, appeared in publications such as the New York Times, and she twice chaired the homeowners association. In addition she served as president of the Lowndes County Society for the Preservation of Antiquities and as longtime secretary of the Stephen D. Lee Foundation. In the 1960s, concerned about the erosion of Columbus treasury of antebellum homes, she sought and received a real estate brokers license, unusual for women at that time, in order to find a new generation of stewards for old houses, for which she received the Leadership in Preservation Award from Historic Columbus, Inc. Following her husbands death in 1991 and seeking new challenges, Frances Ivy reinvigorated her relationship with M.U.W., raising a highly successful legal defense fund for the alumnae association during a litigious period, as well as scholarships in honor of her class of 1937. Faced with possible closure as a result of a lawsuit known as the Ayres case, Mrs. Ivy personally marshaled her extensive alumnae network to stare down the opposition, traveling to federal court each day to represent the W in Judge Neal Biggerss courtroom, meeting regularly with the press, and ultimately winning representation by legal counsel for the university. Stories about her and the band of committed alums appeared in the Clarion Ledger in Jackson and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, among others. In 1999, she raised over $1.3 million from alumnae resources in record-breaking time to establish a scholarship fund in honor of president Clyda Stokes Rent. For a brief but productive time, Frances Ivy joined the staff of M.U.W. in a consulting capacity, where she served in a role of Institutional Advancement, calling on potential donors and supporters throughout the country with the president. Mrs. Ivy was twice honored by the W : in 1991, with the universitys Alumni Achievement Award, and in 1995, with the MUW Medal of Excellence, the universitys highest honor. As a civic activist, she served as a charter member and president of the Columbus Junior Auxiliary, helping the organization to win a national award for a program for exceptional children. After several terms as president of the Columbus Garden Club, she served on the state board of Garden Clubs of Mississippi and was first regional director of the Tombigbee Valley District. She was the first woman to serve on the Columbus Planning Commission, appointed in 1968, at a time that the city engaged in a major planning effort. In 1974, she was appointed as one of four women to the advisory board of the National Bank of Commerce, now known as Cadence Bank, a position she held for decades. In 1999, she served at the appointment of Gov Ronnie Musgrove to the committee under the chairmanship of former Governor William Winter charged with proposing changes to the Mississippi flag, which she embraced as a step toward unifying the previously racially divided state. A committed Methodist, Mrs. Ivy taught a class at First United Methodist Church since the late 1940s, and she held offices within the church including a position on the official board. For her lifetime of achievements, in 1996 she was awarded the Book of Golden Deeds by the Columbus Exchange Club as well as Soroptomist Internationals award, Women Helping Women. Writing opened doors beyond her home. Twice she served as a columnist for the local newspaper, the Commercial Dispatch: first with a column of book reviews in the 1950s, with a column entitled, Browsing with Frances Ivy, and in the 1990s she returned with a popular column, Strolling. With her husband Robert, she co-authored a book of reminiscences about the Black Prairie, called A Boys Will. Her genealogical book, cited in other scholarly books nationally, on the Ledyard family of New York and Connecticut, traces her ancestry to include the leader of the first English-speaking colony in New York state, a Yale founder, and Frances Ivys personal heroine, her 17th-century grandmother and colonial advocate of religious freedom"Anne Hutchinson. Well-born, outspoken, passionate, charismatic, Mrs. Hutchinson led others with her powers of persuasion, characteristics that Frances Ivy admired and emulated in a life of service. She leaves one son, Robert Adams Ivy, Jr., and daughter "in-law, Holly Hall Ivy, of New York, New York, and Columbus; 3 grandchildren (and their spouses), Virginia Ivy and husband Daren Dortin of Searcy, Arkansas, Robert Adams Ivy III of Columbus, and RP3 Benjamin Ledyard Ivy of Sugar Grove, West Virginia; and one great-grandchild, Henry Moss Ivy. Arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Funeral Home. Visitation will be held from 1:00-2:00PM Saturday, December 6, 2008 in the Fellowship Hall of First United Methodist Church. Her funeral will be at 2:00PM at First Methodist with the Rev. Clare Dobbs and Dr. Walt Porter, officiating and with burial to follow at Friendship Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Billy Phillips, Sonny Glenn, Jim Kinsey, Howard Fisackerly, Charlie Bond and Houston Hardy. Honorary pallbearers will be members of the Ivy Bible Class. Memorials may be made to the Ivy Bible Class, First United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 32, Columbus, Ms 39703, the Columbus-Lowndes Library, 314 7th Street North, Columbus, Ms 39701 or to the donors choice. \
