Betty Ann Fitch

Betty Ann Fitch is part of an extended family that worked and lived at Monticello for more than a century.  She earned her master’s degree in English and became a teacher.  She was particularly close to her grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Fitch, who was orphaned at age four and taken in by the Levy-Mayhoff family, the owners of Monticello.  Mary Elizabeth Henderson lived with and worked for the Mayhoffs for more than twenty years, spending long periods in New York City as well as Monticello.  She married Thomas Jefferson Fitch, the Monticello coachman and chauffeur.  Betty Ann Fitch is her family’s history-keeper and treasures a quilt made by her grandmother and her sewing circle.

Ancestry

• Willis Shelton

  ca. 1835–1902

• Elizabeth Shelton Henderson

  ca. 1856–1888

• Mary E. Henderson Fitch

  1881–1950

• Betty Ann Fitch

  1939-2021

Marriage license for Thomas Jefferson Fitch and Mary Elizabeth Henderson, 1910

Interview Information

21 Jan. 1995, Charlottesville, VA
Interviewees: Betty Ann Fitch, Mary Reaves, Thomas Fitch

25 Feb. 1995, Charlottesville, VA
Interviewees: Betty Ann Fitch, Mary Reaves