Virginia Pounds Brown
Mary Virginia Pounds Brown (born May 29, 1916 in Birmingham) is a librarian, historian and author.
Brown grew up in Birmingham and graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1937. She went on to attend graduate classes at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, then returned to Birmingham and took a job as a library assistant at the Birmingham Public Library.
In 1941 she left to return to school, and earned her master's in library science a year later. She became a reference librarian at Birmingham-Southern College and served as library director from 1944 to 1948.
She married Torchmark accountant Bestor Brown. In 1950 they opened The Book-Keepers bookstore in Mountain Brook Village, selling the business in 1975.
Brown collaborated with Helen Akens on her first publication, a history of Alabama for young readers published in 1962. During the writing of that book, she became interested in Alabama's native people, and published several works on that subject.
Brown was an avid golfer until giving up the game in 2008 at the age of 91.
Publications
- Brown, Virginia Pounds & Helen Morgan Akens (1962) Alabama: Mounds to Missiles. Huntsville: Strode Publishers
- Brown, Virginia Pounds & Helen Morgan Akens (1967) Alabama Heritage. Huntsville: Strode Publishers
- Brown, Virginia Pounds (1975) The Gold Disc of Coosa. Huntsville: Strode Publishers
- Brown, Virginia Pounds & Laurella Owens (1981) Toting the Lead Row: Ruby Pickens Tartt, Alabama Folklorist. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
- Brown, Virginia Pounds (1984) Grand Old Days of Birmingham Golf, 1898-1930.. Birmingham: Beechwood Books
- Brown, Virginia Pounds & Laurella Owens, eds. (1985) Southern Indian Myths and Legends. Birmingham: Beechwood Books
- Brown, Virginia Pounds (1996) Cochula's Journey. Montgomery: Black Belt Press
- Brown, Virginia Pounds (2003) Mother & Me: An Intimate Memoir of Her Last Years. Montgomery: NewSouth Books
References
- Thompson, Ian (February 17, 2011) "Mary Virginia Brown is a storehouse of Birmingham golf history." Birmingham News
- Virginia Pounds Brown (May 30, 2008) at "This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape"