Virginia Reid
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| September 19, 1914 ~
December 4, 2011 |
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December 7, 2011 |
 Virginia
Reid, 97, passed away peacefully at 6:40 p.m.,
Sunday, December 4, 2011, at Boundary Community
Hospital, Bonners Ferry. Come join Virginia's
family and enjoy a celebration of her life at 4
p.m., Thursday, December 29, at Northside School
Bed and Breakfast, Bonners Ferry.
She was born on Sept. 19, 1914, to Victor and
Ada Norling in Brooklyn, New York. Virginia had
two older brothers, Victor and Herb, and an
older sister, Irma. Victor Sr. served for 30
years in the U.S. army in the military band;
once at the Mexican border under General "Black
Jack" Pershing in the "Pancho Villa Expedition,"
as a bugler and another time in the Philippines
in the end of the Spanish-American War while Ada
took the older three kids to Sweden to live with
her mother.
From 1923-1929 he served as Band Director of the
University of Cincinatti, sent by the army.
Traveling to different military bases with her
family, Virginia acquired her love of travel and
music. Virginia was baptized August 5, 1920, in
the Lutheran church in Chillicothe, Ohio. She
completed high school and went on to the
California Secretarial College in San Francisco.
She met and married musician Hugh Morton Reid on
August 10, 1935, and raised a family of five:
Mike, Bruce, Shelley, Alyson (Alicia) and Scott.
Hugh worked in real estate and Virginia also
studied real estate and got her license.
Virginia, also known as Virge, Farmor, which is
Swedish for father's mother and Mormer (Swedish
for mother's mother), loved theater and art and
took further courses in both in the 1950s at San
Mateo College. She was involved extensively in
local theater in the Concord/Redwood
City/Millbrae area. One play she performed in
was "Riders to the Sea," a tragedy by Irish
playwright John Millington Synge, in the leading
role of Maurya. Her daughter, Shelley, also
acted in it. Virginia started two theater groups
in Walnut Creek and Placerville, Calif.
Hugh and Virginia divorced in 1957 and she began
her full-time work career as secretary, then
Superior Court clerk and eventually legal
secretary for the next twenty years, all the
while pursuing theater and then art.
In 1962 she embarked on a three month tour of
Europe with her two young children; Alyson, who
was nine and Scott, who was eight, in tow. The
kids carried their own suitcases all over Europe
and visited many museums. Virginia always said
they were troopers. In 1958, she began her
long-time involvement in melodrama with the
Claypipers in Drytown, California. Every summer
for 12 years she and other friends with families
wrote, choreographed, directed, acted, sang and
danced and produced high caliber melodramas,
plays and olios (dance numbers) which were
performed in an authentic restored gold rush
saloon/dancehall in the heart of the Mother
Lode. In '64 we moved to Placerville, where
Virginia involved herself in work, starting a
theater group there and in raising Scott and
Alyson. In the late 1960s Virginia reentered
night school for acting and art classes at
American River College. She performed in a
theatre production of "The Donner Party" in Fair
Oaks, California. Upon retirement with the kids
all grown, Virginia purchased a Winnebago and
headed out on the road to RV and paint and see
the West. She's always been big on camping and
enjoying the natural wonders. This she did from
about '72 to '82, only stopping to visit with
the family.
In 1978 she took a six-month trip around the
world by herself, at one point joining a tour
group from Katmandu in which the group camped in
tents and cooked mostly their own food, taking
them across the mid-East to Afghanistan, Jordan
and into Egypt, where she rode a camel to the
pyramids. After several visits to Bonners Ferry
to visit Alicia and Scott, she decided to trade
her gypsy life in for a small house on the
Kootenai River in Bonners Ferry, where she lived
for 16 years. All this time she continued her
painting and stayed involved with her family,
enjoying her eight grandchildren who lived
nearby.
In 2000 she needed to move to the Restorium,
where she stayed for five years, then she chose
an apartment, and from there moved to Ace Elder
Care, then back to the Restorium for several
months and finally the hospital and the Extended
Care Facility, where she spent her final year.
She is preceded in death by her parents,
brothers and sister. She lived the longest of
all the relatives that they know.
When Alicia told her this she responded
jokingly, "Really? Those wimps!"
She is survived by her five children: Mike Reid
of Belmont, California; Bruce Reid of Mesquite,
Nevada; Shelley McAllister of San Jose,
California; Alicia Braden of Bonners Ferry and
Scott Reid, Kelso Lake, Idaho; her 14 grandkids:
Kristi Hildebrandt of Belmont; Jeff Reid of New
York City, N.Y.; Brian Reid of Thornton,
Colorado; Kathleen Ulrich of Rupert, Idaho;
Scott Krijnan of San Jose; Veronica Jensen of
Bellingham, Washington; Winter Braden Ramos of
all over the US and the world; Forest Braden of
Beverly Hills, California; Meadow and Melody
Braden of Bonners Ferry, Idaho; Gretchen
Chapelle/Davidson of Sidney, Australia;
Gabrielle Reid-Schuppel of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho;
Angela Birdsall of Coeur d'Alene; Jesse Reid of
Spokane, and presently 10 great-grandkids, with
more to come.
All in all Virginia led a very full, creative,
long and blessed life.
At the celebrtion of Virginia’s life, some of
her art will be displayed and there will be live
music, a potluck and a slide show. For more info
contact: Scott Reid at
slreid@icehouse.net or Alicia Braden at
songallicin@yahoo.com or (208) 267-7869 -
also Scott Reid on Facebook.
Family and friends are invited to sign
Virginia’s book at
www.bonnersferryfuneralhome.com.
Arrangements are entrusted to the care of
Bonners Ferry Funeral Home.
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