History: The Organizing Regent of this Chapter, Grace Lesta Snyder, was a lady of unusual charm and intelligence, a lady highly respected by other organizing Charter members. Mrs. Snyder was a descendant of John and Mary Willis Wade Strother, early settlers in Virginia’s Rappahannock Valley, where they built their home “Wadefield.” John Strother served as an officer during the American Revolution. He held his wife in high and tender esteem and exacted from all his household that they treat her with the deference due a woman of such noble character. When Mary Wade married, she brought a tiny pear tree to her new home, and from a branch of this same tree was carved the gavel used by the Regents of Mary Wade Strother Chapter.