Ina Ruth Hillis Lackey Papers, 1909-1988

Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Brooke Trent.

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

2003


Collection Overview
	Creator:	Lackey, Ina Ruth Hillis, 1909-1999
	Title:	Ina Ruth Hillis Lackey Papers
	Dates:	1909-1988
	Dates:	1909-1988
	Abstract:	YWCA overseas secretary, YWCA official, USO regional director. Papers document some of her YWCA work, primarily in Brazil, and include circular letters sent annually to friends and relatives plus photographs of YWCA activities.
	Extent:	1 box(.5 linear ft.)
	Language:	English.
	Identification:	MS 292

Biographical Note


	1909	Born in Ardmore, Oklahoma
	1928	A.B. cum laude Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky, major in Spanish, minor in education
	1936-1942	Director of Social Work, Peoples' Central Institute, Methodist Board of Missions, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
	1936	M.A. Scarritt College, Nashville, Tennessee, religious education and social work
	1942-1943	Postgraduate studies, Union Seminary and Teachers' College, Columbia University
	1943-1945	Regional Supervisor, USO, Recife and environs, Brazil
	1946-1958	Advisory Secretary, YWCA, Recife, Brazil
	1958	Associate Executive Director, YWCA, Akron, Ohio
	1959-1964	Executive Director, YWCA, Corpus Christi, Texas
	1964-1968	Consultant, YWCA, Recife, Brazil, developing a social center; consultant, Governor of Pernambuco State, Brazil, opening day nurseries; assistant to the Director, Catholic Relief Services, northeast Brazil
	1968-1972	Executive Director, YWCA, Albuquerque, New Mexico
	1972-1975	Executive Director, YWCA, Racine, Wisconsin
	1975-	Various retirement activities, Niagara Falls, New York, Maceio, Brazil, and Albuquerque, including chairman, Task Force on Aging, New Mexico Conference of Churches (1984-85)
	1999	Died March 1st

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Ina Ruth Hillis Lackey papers consist of 5 linear inches of correspondence and biographical material, including clippings and photographs. The inclusive dates are 1909 to 1988, the major part spanning from the last year (1957) of her twelve year tenure as YWCA secretary in Racife, Brazil, to 1988, when she donated the papers.

Ina Ruth Lackey at "ACF Social Center Festo," Y.W.C.A. center (most likely in Reclife, Brazil), 1971

The papers are divided into two series, CORRESPONDENCE and BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL. The CORRESPONDENCE section contains 5 letters, 1958-1969, to and from Hillis Lackey related to her work in Recife; a letter describing her life and philosophy of service (1987); a letter to the Collection after donating the papers (1988); and, primarily, circular letters sent by her once or twice a year between 1975 and 1988 to friends and family members (200 of them, she estimates in one of the letters) to update them on her personal life, travel and retirement plans, and post-retirement activities, voluntary and paid. There are 33 of these letters, since most had both an English and a Portuguese version. The letters portray a vigorous woman in her 60s and 70s for whom retirement is an extension of her YWCA career in the service of those in need--in her family, her church, and the communities in which she has lived.

The BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL contains 17 clippings (4 in Portuguese) spanning from 1959, when Ruth Hillis became executive director of the Corpus Christi YWCA, to 1984, when she was retired and living in Albuquerque. The clippings are primarily about her appointment to and tenure in YWCA directorships in Corpus Christi, Albuquerque, and Racine, and about a stint in Brazil in 1964, when she developed and opened a community center in a particularly impoverished section of Recife.

Also in the BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL are the photograph album, well annotated by Mrs. Lackey, mainly with pictures from the Racife community center but with a few of other YWCA personnel in Corpus Christi and South America; a 1967 Peace Corps application with references; and a dossier she prepared in 1986.

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