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Interview 4: 19 June 1980, Greenwich, CT Daughter of Katharine and R. J. Reynolds Interviewer: Lu Ann Jones Four interviews in 1980 with the first taking place in Winston-Salem, NC and the others at Quarry Farm in Greenwich, CT. Nancy Susan Reynolds (1910-1985), youngest daughter of R.J. and Katharine Reynolds, was interviewed by Lu Ann Jones in the summer of 1980 as part of the Reynolda House Oral History Project. Over the course of four interview sessions, Reynolds intimately discusses her parents and early childhood, growing up at Reynolda, and what life was like for her and her three siblings after their parents’ death. Nancy Reynolds kicks off the fourth and final interview, conducted on 19 June 1980, by discussing the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and details how her father named his most famous brands—Camel and Prince Albert. Brief recollection of her father’s stance regarding some of the pressure put upon him to “water the stock” by the Tobacco Trust is mentioned in relation to choosing the Camel name. As in previous interviews, Reynolds provides snippets of information about her mother; one being a similarity she felt she shared with her for having “a great power of concentration,” and another that she had "very black hair and very blue eyes." She tells that her mother’s family were bookworms and that the Smith’s attic was packed with books, and that Katharine Reynolds started her college education at the State Normal and Industrial College, now known as the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Katharine Reynolds had to leave due to a typhoid epidemic and finished her studies at Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia. Nancy Reynolds also tells that her mother was talented and interested in painting, sewing, and designing her own clothes. During this interview Reynolds also discusses her first marriage to Henry Bagley, motherhood, and their children—Anne, Jane, Susan, and Smith. She spoke about Jane and Smith’s involvement in the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Susan’s humanitarian work in Africa, and Anne not following a professional path but being predominantly family centered. As well, she recognizes that Smith and her brother Dick shared an interest in politics, and mentions that Charlie Babcock was instrumental in getting the Republican Party started in Winston. Reynolds also talks about her return to college in 1956, studying history at Columbia University. She remarried in 1960 and relates that her second husband Gilbert Verney was a sailor and that they went on some wonderful trips. The marriage did not last and Reynolds provides input about both of her divorces. Reynolds also explains that she returned to her maiden name after divorcing Verney since he insisted that she drop his surname. Despite Bagley offering the use of his name again, Reynolds decided, “After all, the name I was born with I had a right to, and [that] nobody could tell me I couldn’t use, was Reynolds. So I used it.” A wide range of topics are recollected by Reynolds as the interview progresses, including her visits to Dick and Blitz Reynolds at Sapelo Island in South Carolina, and her building a house and designing gardens on her property on Saint Simon’s Island in South Carolina. She describes the room at Reynolda House that was prepared for her father upon his return from the hospital, which is where he died, and that she considers the years from 1921-1924 to be the most stable years of her life while at Reynolda. Several employees she remembers are Lizzie Thompson, a nursemaid and later telephone operator, and Ben Bernard, Katharine Reynold’s secretary after R.J. Reynolds died. Nancy Reynolds concludes the interview by candidly speaking about her brother Smith’s tragic death and the negative publicity that followed.