Sara Revis (1922–2021)
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sara revis surrounded by irises in her 37th Street yard. Photos courtesy of Ms. Revis’s niece, Sara Grosvenor, Unless otherwise noted.
By Forrest Bachner
Sara Revis was a long-term Burleith resident whom I didn’t know. I saw Sara over the years at our community picnics, to my eye a much older, gray-haired woman with a serious air about her. For whatever reason, or no reason, I never got around to trying to strike up a conversation. Such a big mistake on my part.
This year, Pat Scolaro urged me to find out about Sara, her long-time next-door neighbor, who died in 2021 just short of her hundredth birthday. What I found was an utterly remarkable woman who had lived in our midst since 1950 except for her overseas postings. Pat believed that Sara deserved to be written up in the Burleith Bell, and I couldn’t agree more.
Pat also told me that in the spring, Sara’s 37th Street yard would become a sea of irises. Irises that Sara brought from her mother’s farm in Virginia. Irises that her other relatives transported to at least ten states. So, when Sara’s house was sold and the buyer, a developer, began excavating the front yard, Sara’s neighbors, led by Pat and Kay Twomey, grabbed their buckets and shovels and raced to save the bulbs, eventually offering them to the Burleith community on the listserv.
A lovely tribute to an extraordinary woman, one I wish I’d taken the time to know.
Obituary provided by Sara Revis’s niece, Sara Grosvenor.
Sara Marguerite Revis, 99, a retired CIA officer, archaeologist, and genealogist, passed away September 23, 2021, five days shy of her 100th birthday, at her home in the Aarondale Retirement Community, Springfield, VA.
Born in Harrington Park, NJ, Ms. Revis was the third of six children and grew up in Englewood. From 1927 until 1932, she lived in India when her father suspended his 30-year-old, tile-importing business in Manhattan to serve with the Methodist Board of Foreign Ministries. Ms. Revis attended the international Woodstock School with her siblings and other missionary children in Mussoorie, a remote and historic hill station in the Himalayas north of Delhi.
Back in the states, Ms. Revis graduated in Latin studies from Randolph Macon Women’s College, in Lynchburg, VA, in 1941 and began work as a civilian employee of the War Department at the School of Military Government, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, receiving a special commendation in 1943. From April 1944 to 1948, she was commissioned as a Communications Officer in the US Navy WAVES in Washington, DC, after completing training at the Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School of Northampton, MA. She performed “general Cryptocenter duties,” working a series of shifts around the clock, and continued to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserves until October 1954.
Intrigued by the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, Ms. Revis applied and served her career there as one of the first women from 1948 to 1975, mainly as a Reports Officer in the DC-area headquarters, as well as in Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and South America. She liked to remember that one official complimented her ability to “reduce words to the irreducible minimum.”
In retirement, Ms. Revis developed a second career in archaeological research, cared for older relatives, and travelled in England, China, and Russia. She took courses in anthropology, archaeology, and ancient history at American University, George Washington University, and Northern Virginia Community College.
Ms. Revis worked on numerous archaeological digs in DC, Massachusetts, Delaware, Israel, and Yorkshire, England, as well as Alexandria, VA, uncovering relics from urban digs ahead of new developments. She also volunteered in documentary research at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Genealogical Society, the Friends of Alexandria Archaeology, and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum.
Ms. Revis published several journals of family history and was a longtime member of the St. John's Episcopal Church, Georgetown.
Ms. Revis is survived by two sisters, Anne Revis Grosvenor of Chestertown, MD, and Rowena Revis Jones of Marquette, MI, her brother-in-law, Stan Judge of Shelburne, NH, as well as 16 nieces and nephews and numerous great-nieces and nephews. [Editor’s note: Anne Revis Grosvenor died on May 27, 2022.]
By Ross Schipper, former Burleith resident, leader of the Burleith History group, co-author of Burleith: Images of America (Arcadia Publishing, 2017), and for many years the BCA webmaster.
sara revis at the 2014 burleith picnic. photo by alex frederick.
Sara Revis was a long-time active member of Burleith. Among her community contributions:
She served as the Burleith archivist in 1983.
She was an active member of the Burleith Garden Club and in 1985 assisted in the beautification of the Burleith Tot Lot. A photo of Sara along with other Garden Club members appears in Chapter 5 (page 87) of Dwane Starlin’s and my book, Burleith: Images of America.
In December 1998, she was one of three judges for the Burleith Holiday Decorating Contest.
In 2000–2001, Sara served on the board of the BCA as its recording secretary.
In March 2013, during preparations for Burleith’s 90th anniversary celebration, Dwane Starlin and I invited Sara to supply historical photographs for use in Burleith: Images of America. Sara generously provided a number of photographs, for which we were grateful.
One of these, appearing in Chapter 2 (page 27), shows 3545 S Street decorated for Halloween. Of the over 530 homes in Burleith, 3545 S Street, built in 1912, is one of only 71 that were constructed before Shannon & Luchs broke ground on its Burleith development in March 1923.
A second Sara Revis photo appears in Chapter 7 (page 122). This shows one of the Burleith call boxes. Known as “Shorty,” it is located on the corner of 37th and R streets. Her photo also shows the home of Frances Lewine, the first female full-time White House correspondent for the Associated Press.