Virginia McConnell Bush
- Published: October 8, 2009
Virginia McConnell Bush died September 29 at Kettering Medical Center following a brief illness. She was born January 7, 1919, in Detroit, Mich., to Thomas Henry McConnell and Beatrice Williams McConnell. She grew up in Manhattan, N.Y., and Oliphant, Pa.
Virginia acquired a great fondness and expertise for horseback riding as a youngster. She graduated from college at Scranton, Pa., as a teacher. She met Dixon Bush while instructing riding at a summer camp and they married on August 13, 1946.
After living in and around New York, they moved to Yellow Springs with their five sons in 1955. Virginia was active in the community as a member of the League of Women Voters, the Friendly Gardeners Club and the Antioch faculty wives. Virginia was an avid reader her entire life. She spent many active years here, living in and “supervising” the restoration of the family home at Grinnell Circle, touring the country on summer camping expeditions and raising her boys.
She and Dixon left Yellow Springs in 1969 for Franconia N.H., Durango, Colo., then Forest Park, Ill., before Dixon’s early retirement and return in 1974. They were active in the establishment and operation of Bushworks well into the ‘90s.
Following Dixon’s death in 2002, Virginia spent her final years in the comfort of the Charles and Debbie Bush home in Beavercreek, attended by family as well as Loretta Furay and Toni Sams, her good friends to the last.
She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, her brother Thomas McConnell, her niece MaryAnn McConnell and nephew Thomas McConnell Jr. She is survived by five sons: James Edwin of Maine, Michael Henry of Iowa and Charles Williams, Peter Benjamin and John Dixon of Ohio as well as grandchildren Ben, Charles and Henry Bush, George and Clayton Bush, Kathryn and Susanne Bush, and Phoebe and Amanda Bush. Great-grandchildren are Ezra, Indira, Sophie and Leo. She is also survived by her niece Julianne McConnell and nephew William McConnell.
A memorial will be announced at a later date.
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