Mary Riley Styles

Born and raised at Cherry Hill Farmhouse in Falls Church City.

A committed local civic activist, participated in a wide variety of causes throughout her lifetime, but best known for her dedication to the Falls Church Library.

For more than 25 years, served as chairman of the Library Committee of the Falls Church Women’s Club, which managed and funded the local Falls Church library prior to its becoming a City service in 1940.

In 1945, the Women’s Club adopted a resolution honoring her service to the library stating a direct correlation between the survival and expansion of the library and her dedication, spirit, and moral and financial support.

Upon her death in 1946, her children, acknowledging their mother’s wish that her estate benefit the City library, gave a portion of the original Riley Farm to the City of Falls Church for the construction of the current library. Falls Church was the first community in Northern Virginia to plan a building specifically and solely for use as a public library. The new Falls Church Public library opened in 1958 and was renamed in her honor in 1977, the Mary Riley Styles Public Library.