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Virginia Reid

September 19, 1914 ~ December 4, 2011
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.