The Mystery of the Vanishing Plaque

By Dennis Hull ‘22

For more than eighty years, a commemorative plaque, installed by the Garden Club of Virginia (GCV), adorned the brick wall outside of Lee Chapel. The plaque read:

In Reverent Memory of

General Robert E. Lee

This Terrace and Plantings

For The

Lee Chapel

Given By

The Garden Club of Virginia

This September, however, the plaque mysteriously disappeared. Currently in its place is a white sheet of paper, bearing the words: “New Garden Club of Virginia Plaque Under Construction.”

Upon further inquiry, members of the GCV’s Restoration Committee stated that they had removed the plaque at the behest of the W&L administration – specifically, in response to a request from the Office of the President. In August, a meeting was held between the W&L Director of Institutional History, the Assistant to the President of W&L, and a member of the Garden Club’s Restoration Committee, in which the administration requested the removal of the phrase “In Reverent Memory of General Robert E. Lee” from the plaque. The Restoration Committee agreed to alter the plaque and suggested that the offending phrase be replaced with the seal of the Garden Club. 

It is standard policy for GCV to alter plaques only at the explicit request of the institution where the plaque resides. Thanks to the W&L administration, the plaque was duly removed and replaced with temporary signage while the original plaque is refashioned. Based on conversations with Garden Club leadership, it appears that the initiative to alter the wording on the plaque originated with the Director of Institutional History, and was subsequently approved at the highest levels of the W&L administration.

The decision to remove the phrase commemorating Lee reflects poor judgment on the part of the administration. The Board of Trustees is currently in the midst of an intensive, months-long process to determine whether the University will maintain the namesake of Robert E. Lee; a unilateral move by the administration to remove his name from a commemorative plaque outside of Lee Chapel is unduly preemptive and completely unnecessary. If the Board does eventually decide to change the name of the University, then it would be prudent to alter the wording of the plaque. But that process is yet to be completed. The alteration seems to be yet another item on a laundry list of administrative efforts to obscure any mention of Robert E. Lee at W&L, before the Board has the chance to reach a conclusion.

Removing two lines from a plaque is hardly the end of the world. Most W&L students probably didn’t know the plaque existed in the first place (until recently, neither did I). But the Board’s decision is nearly upon us. For once, the administration should exercise patience and restraint and allow due process to run its course.