Nancy was the youngest daughter and last surviving child of R. J. Reynolds, and just 8 years old when he died. She was a working heiress, editor of Washington Life magazine that her granddaughter, Nancy Bagley, is editor-in-chief of today. Almost a century after her father founded the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, she decided to give something back to the region that gave her family its first opportunities. In 1969 she deeded Virginia Tech 710 acres of Rock Spring Plantation and in 1980 she deeded them another 7 acres, where the family home and continuing education center stand. A State and National landmark listed in the National Registry of American Homes, it is now called the Reynolds Homestead. Nancy created an endowment of $1.7 million to provide cultural programming to the surrounding community, to run a forestry research center on the site, and to fund a scholarship program for Patrick County high school students. She financed this transaction in part by selling Quarry Farm, her Greenwich, Connecticut, home where stone for the Statue of Liberty was mined, to Diana Ross of the former Supremes. In 1952 she set up the Nancy Susan Bagley Foundation, now called the Arca Foundation, to better the lot of humankind. Her son and other family members are very invovled in the Foundation. Tobacco made her family wealthy and well known but it also is believed to have caused many of their deaths, including hers. Nancy had one cancerous lung removed and died of emphysema in the other. R. J., himself, died of pancreatic cancer believed to be the result of his life-long use of plug chewing tobacco. Her older brother, R. J., Jr., died at 58 of emphysema. Three of his four wives died of cancer. Her older sister, Mary Katharine, died at 45 of stomach cancer. Her nephew, R. J., III, (known as Josh), died at 60 of emphysema. Three years after Nancy's death, her oldest daughter, Jane, died of lung cancer. They all smoked. Nancy was married to Henry Walker Bagley with whom she had four children, Jane Bagley Long Lehman, Smith Walker Bagley, Susan Bagley Bloom, and Ann Bagley Grant. Her marriages to Henry Bagley and Gilbert Verney ended in divorce. Nancy would have been 75 less than a month after her death. Her youngest brother, Zachary Smith (known as Smith), died at 21 of a gunshot at Reynolda, the family home. His wife, torch singer Libby Holman, was charged with his murder. The Reynolds family had the charges dropped as it was never proven whether his death was a murder or suicide. Because of the generosity of the Reynolds family, many individuals and organizations have benefited. Duke and Wake Forest Universities were early beneficiaries of their philanthropy. Today, Reynolda is run by Wake Forest University. Nancy is the only child of R. J. Reynolds that is buried at his birth place and boyhood home.

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The Nancy Susan Reynolds Foundation was later renamed the Arca Foundation. Arca is Latin for treasure chest and Italian for ark, a vessel affording safety and protection. Arca's founder felt strongly that foundations should not attempt to substitute for government; they should avoid taking the safe path.

Nancy Susan Reynolds' deliberate and focused point of view has driven Arca's philanthropy for 65 years. Throughout its history, the foundation has sustained its commitment to experimentation, always seeking to transform ideas into action and continually looking to activists, academics, policy makers, and intellectuals to inform its grantmaking. In supporting organizations working on eliminating toxins from our water and households, Central American human rights, US-Cuba policy, ending the death penalty, campaign finance reform, media policy reform, financial reform, Pentagon budget reform and racial justice, the Arca Foundation has carefully and strategically chosen areas of concentration in which to invest its resources, ever remaining committed to the guiding principles and vision of its founder.

https://www.ArcaFoundation.org