Ann Martin Kinsey, former Library Director of the Cumberland County Public Library, passed away on February 20, 2010, in Alexandria, VA. Mrs. Kinsey was born in Suffolk, VA, on May 27, 1924. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Farmville State Teachers College (now Longwood University) in 1946. She went on to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where she received a graduate degree in Library Science. She worked at the South Bend, Indiana, City Library for three years and returned to Virginia in 1950 to work at the Richmond Public Library in the Circulation and Reference Departments. While in Richmond, she met the late Carrol H. Kinsey and married him in 1952.

Mr. and Mrs. Kinsey then moved to the Washington, DC, area where they lived with their son, Carrol H. Kinsey, Jr., until Mr. Kinsey retired from the Department of the Navy in 1975. The Kinseys relocated to Cumberland, VA, thereafter and Mrs. Kinsey served as a volunteer at the Cumberland County Public Library, then located in the rear of the historic Cumberland County Courthouse. Mrs. Kinsey became a member of the Library Board and, when a native son of Cumberland, John McRae, donated funds to Cumberland County, Mrs. Kinsey and many other county residents and businesses worked together to raise additional funds to build a new library at its present location.

Mrs. Kinsey worked with the Library Board and helped obtain State funding for the library. She served as its first Library Director from 1985 until her retirement, at the age of 80, in 2004. During her tenure as Library Director, Mrs. Kinsey, with the gracious assistance of many volunteers, staff, and business and individual contributors, helped make the library into an integral part of Cumberland County life. So much so, that, in 1997, a building project was initiated to raise funds for the expansion of the library. That expansion was completed and dedicated in 1999 and resulted in a modern, fully automated, internet-connected library and resource center for the citizens of Cumberland County that was more than three times the size of the original building.

Mrs. Kinsey was proud to have lived in Cumberland, a community of friendly, wonderful people and was sad to leave upon her retirement. She moved to Alexandria to be close to her son and his family and lived an active life at Paul Spring Retirement Community, where she made many new friends; played bingo, bridge, and scrabble; and volunteered in the Community library.

Mrs. Kinsey was preceded in death by her husband, Carrol, and her brother, Dr. A.G.M. Martin, III, of La Feria, TX. She is survived by her son, Carrol (Jr.); his wife, Lucy; granddaughters, Kate and Monica Kinsey; as well as nieces, Anne Martin Jones, Louise Martin Graham, and Virginia Martin; nephew, Archibald Graham McIlwaine Martin, IV; five grandnephews, two grandnieces, and four great-grandnephews. Friends may call at the Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home, 1500 W. Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA 22302 on Saturday, February 27, 2010, from 2 p.m. until the time of the memorial service at 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her name to the Cumberland County Public Library, 1539 Anderson Highway, P.O. Box 98, Cumberland, VA 23040.