Ida Lee Park Has a Rich History
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By Joe Motheral
n 1986, William F. Rust Jr. and his wife, Margaret Dole Rust, donated their Greenwood Farm—138 acres to be used as a public park now known as Ida Lee Park in Leesburg. In 1988, construction of the recreation center got underway that included an indoor swimming pool, a fitness center, gymnasium and meeting rooms. It was completed in 1990, and as time went on various elements were added thanks in part to the Rust family who continued to help finance and support the Park. Mrs. A.V. Symington entered the picture when her estate donated $5 million for an aquatic park and indoor tennis courts. According to Rich Williams, director of Leesburg Parks And Recreation, the Rust family requested they name the park after their maternal grandmother, Ida Lee. Ida Lee was born on August 14, 1840 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. According to Katey Jackson, the Ida Lee Park Recreation Superintendent, “Ida was a well-adjusted member of the old and established Lee Family of Virginia.” She was the daughter of Edmund Jennings Lee, first cousin of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Jackson said that the Lee family home burned down in 1859 and, after the family built a second home, it was burned down by the “Yankees” during the Civil War. Ida Lee married Col. Armstead Thomson Mason Rust on September 19, 1860 and they lived in the Rust
Ida Lee
The front entrance to Leesburg’s Ida Lee Park.
estate in Leesburg known as Rockland. She ultimately had 12 children. Following the death of her husband in 1887, she moved into Leesburg on Cornwall Street. “Ida Lee was outspoken, well-educated and her diaries reflect her interest in her children and grandchildren,” Jackson said. “She understood the value of education and home schooled her children.” Ms. Lee died in 1921 at the age of 80 but her legacy lives on in the form of the extensive Park named after her. As a long- time member of the Leesburg community, A.V. Symington was born Valerie Harris in New York City in 1916. She was the sister of Huntington Harris, who once lived at the Cattail Farm on Edwards Ferry Road. She always insisted on being called A.V. and everyone knew her by that name. Her husband, James H. Symington, died in 1974. As a member of the wealthy Harris banking family in Chicago she had immense financial resources.
And she evidently had a strong sense of community, having donated her 286-acre farm, Temple Hall north of Leesburg, to the Northern Virginia Park Authority. She was insistent that the property stay in farming and selected the authority as the best organization to carry out her wish to preserve the land and help others learn about and appreciate farming. She died in 2003 and is interned in the Union Cemetery in Leesburg. Her friends knew her as always upbeat with a wonderful sense of humor. She also was a lifelong swimmer and competed in the Senior Olympics. In 1998, she was invited to attend a meeting of the venerable Catoctin Farmers Club. Childs Burden of Middleburg, a past president of the club, once recalled that she brought her knitting, talked about her father, brother and husband who had all been members, and told farming stories. Club members were so impressed, they invited her to be their first and only female member.
Country ZEST & Style | Winter 2024
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