RENE LLEWELLYN A Legendary Fondness For All

RENE LLEWELLYN

A Legendary Fondness For All

By Denis Cotter

More than three decades have gone by since an indomitable English woman, Rene Llewellyn, (1906-1991) passed away. She lived in the Middleburg area from the time she arrived in the U.S. in 1945 and was a constant force for good in her adopted American home town.

Rene’s local charitable resume includes founding the Windy Hill Foundation that provides more than 300 affordable housing units for lower income families in Loudoun and Fauquier counties, starting the local chapter of FISH, which helps residents with financial problems pay essential bills for utilities, rent and much more, and helping found Seven Loaves that aids food insecure families.

Born in central London, Irene Eleanor Franks was the second child of Arthur and Florence Franks. She had a sister Iris, just 15 months older. Her father’s profession is listed on her baptismal certificate as “draper.”

When they were 19 and 20, respectively, Rene (pronounced Ree-Nee) and Iris were debutantes, presented at Court to King George V and Queen Mary in July, 1925. In 1929, Rene married Eric Burt, son of the managing director of an old established printing firm, Wyman and Sons.

Rene and Eric had one child in 1932, their son Kenneth. As a young mother, Rene threw herself into charitable work with her society hostess friends, many of them titled.

Throughout the 1930s, she was chair of a committee that held a Children’s Garden Party every June to raise funds for the maternity clinic at the Royal Free Hospital in London. It was sponsored by the Duchess of York, who went on to become Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) after the abdication of Edward VIII.

When World War II broke out, Rene and her son were evacuated to the Isle of Wight. After being dive-bombed by the German Luftwaffe while she was outside hanging up laundry, they moved to Dorset, where Rene volunteered to drive vans to transport people.

She and Eric eventually divorced and Rene met U.S. Army Colonel Paul Llewellyn, who was stationed in Britain. Twenty years older, he had served in World War I and was president of the Interstate Iron and Steel Corporation of Chicago, which he sold in 1930. He owned a 500-acre farm in Rectortown named “Pen-Y-Bryn” (Welsh for “Hilltop”).

They married in January, 1945 in Leafield, Oxfordshire, 75 miles northwest of London. On V-E Day, May 8, 1945, Paul, his war-bride Rene, and Ken set sail on the SS Marine Fox from Southampton to New York, a troop transport ship.

The family settled at Pen-Y-Bryn and again, Rene became involved in charitable work. She was secretary of the ladies guild at her local church, organizing horse shows, children’s carnivals, and a fashion show at the Middleburg Community Center.

In 1955, Paul died of a heart attack. Needing to work until his estate was settled, Rene contacted Charlotte Noland at Foxcroft, who invited her to become the school librarian. When Rene protested that she knew nothing about being a librarian, Miss Noland remarked “You can learn, can’t you?”

Rene eventually sold Pen-Y-Bryn and purchased a stone cottage on Benton Farm on Snake Hill Road. From 1962 to 1972, Rene served as secretary of the Middleburg Hunt. She also changed parishes, disagreeing with a decision to install airconditioning. She thought the money should go to the poor.

With her friend, Nancy Manierre, Rene organized a training program for men and women to become religious educators and was elected to the board of the Episcopalian Diocese of Virginia.

In 1970, inspired by the FISH movement that began in England, Rene established Middleburg FISH, a group of over 40 volunteers who operated a phone help line and provided a variety of services. Middleburg FISH continues to this day, fulfilling its motto “For Instant Sympathetic Help.”

In the late 1970s, Rene became aware of the deteriorating conditions of many homes on Windy Hill Lane in Middleburg. No running water, no inside toilets, dirt floors, unheated buildings. When she brought a friend over to see it, the woman wrote a check for $10,000 on the spot.

Rene promptly headed to Leesburg and met with a young housing administrator, Sandy Shopes who became her lifelong friend. It was the beginning of the Windy Hill Foundation, which went on to fully rehabilitate the area and develop other affordable dwelling units over the decades. In 1995, Llewellyn Village Apartments, a 16-unit building, was opened at Windy Hill in Rene’s honor.

Rene eventually moved to the WestminsterCanterbury retirement community in Winchester and promptly began organizing a bridge group and interesting her companions in supporting philanthropic efforts. It was a fitting conclusion for a life very well lived.

Sandy Shopes recalled Rene as a deeply religious person. Others speak of her compassion, her energy, her fearlessness, her high expectations of everyone she met with, her sense of humor, her sense of obligation to do the right thing for those less fortunate.

As Bob Dale, former executive director of the Windy Hill Foundation said,

“She had a fondness for all.”

Rene and Paul are buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery, Upperville.