Robert L. Lacy, the son of Benjamin and Emma Lacy of Baltimore, Maryland, was born in November 1876 in Maryland, and studied at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1890s. In 1896, he moved to Boston to pursue coursework in civil engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied for several years. Following his graduation, he worked for the Southern Railway Company in Marion County, Tennessee, and elsewhere throughout the South before eventually returning to Baltimore. He had one sister, Helen. On April 8, 1925, he married a woman named Dorothy, with whom he had at least two children, Louise and Richard.
From the guide to the Lacy family papers, 1893-1926, 1897-1907, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
