[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] OBIT: Virginia Less

[Jerry Frank]

We were saddened to hear of the passing of Virginia Less earlier this 
year as the result of a heart attack.

Virginia and her husband Gary were active participants in SGGEE since 
its founding in 1998.  She was on the Board for several years and 
they tried to attend every yearly convention until Gary's passing in 
2003.  She will be missed greatly by our Society where she had taken 
on several jobs like collecting information on villages across 
Volhynia.  She wrote to many people asking for stories of their lives 
in Poland or Volhynia and even put a booklet of stories together for 
the Society.  Her last posting on our mailing list was in December of 
2007 when she encouraged people to post stories about Christmas 
customs in Volhynia.  It was her husband Gary that had the Volhynia 
German connection yet she continued her involvement with SGGEE in his 
honor until her passing.  We will surely miss her engaging smile and 
encouragement at our conventions.

Extracted from her official obituary:
Virgina A. Less, 81, died Feb. 12, 2008 in Beacon Hill Retirement 
Center.  Mrs. Less was a member of the Great Lakes Association of 
United Church Educations; Glen Ellyn Historical Association; local 
and national chapters of the American Historical Society of Germans 
from Russia; the First Congregational Church for 42 years where she 
founded the church library and resource center.  She was an avid 
genealogist and enjoyed the friendships made at Beacon Hill.

And her daughter further wrote in an email to us:
"I am so pleased that Mom and Dad made so many friends in their years 
of doing genealogy.  Their lives were very much enriched with all the 
people they were constantly meeting and all the new family they 
seemed to always find around one corner or other of the
world.  A huge part of their legacy to my sister and me has been the 
stories and histories of so many (not to mention all the binders and 
files and journals and papers they left us).  I am so sorry that it 
took her passing to get us personally involved in even a small way.

I'd like to share one comment that one of her ministers made at her 
memorial service (and I'm paraphrasing rather than quoting).  She 
said that Mom had been so busy, it wasn't surprising that nothing 
short of a "thunderbolt" could have stopped her in her tracks.  That 
comment made me realize that Mom had lived -- really lived -- her 
life to the fullest to the very end, and I am very grateful for that."


Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca