ForeverMissed
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Her Life

Saying Good Bye...

August 17, 2015

Virginia touched many people’s lives in a positive way.  She was friendly, outgoing and very accepting.  People always reacted to her, even briefly.  Her students adored her.  She was able to be adult and teacher (and disciplinarian), and yet be confidant, parent figure and support person without losing control of the classroom. Please feel free to post any memories you have and would like to share of time you spent with Vee…we (the family) love reading about her and how she touched other people’s lives.

Health

August 17, 2015

IN 2010, Vee was diagnosed as having Parkinson’s disease.  Medication was available to control most of the symptoms, but as is typical of many people with that malady, Vee had a burst of creativity.  Her energies went into the design and manufacture of jewelry, especially necklaces.  Using semi-precious stones and innovative and creative wire wrap and beading techniques, she made striking necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings.   Besides the satisfaction of the creative urge, it also helped her control her tremors.  The results are highly prized by those who own them. 

 

Other interests...

August 17, 2015

Vee was life-long collector of butter pats, many of which adorned her kitchen.  As retirement came closer, she expanded her collecting into china and small antiques.  Vee and Charles, who is also a collector, opened an antique and Western art booth. They started at Forestwood Antique Mall and then at Love Field Antique Mall.  They both derived a large amount of enjoyment from stocking the booth by attending estate sales in the Dallas area.  However, when Love Field Antique Mall closed, they decided not to continue in the business and sold most of their inventory. 

She had a life-long interest in traveling, and was always ready for a trip.  Her father and mother were both competitive shooters, so she traveled extensively in Texas and Oklahoma with them (her method of spending time at matches was to collect brass for the reloaders). She had visited all of the continuous 50 states, lacking only Alaska and Hawaii.  Canada and Mexico were on her visited list as well.  When Eric was in High School, he would spend summers in Texas, and the family decided to visit all the Texas forts.  They only missed one (Fort Stockton), but it took three summers.  Vee and Charles often took a special trip between Christmas and New Year’s, most notably to the plantation houses.  Charles has family in upstate New York, and many happy times were spent in the Finger Lakes area. 

Both Vee and Charles were professional storytellers.  Besides school, where Vee told often, they performed at campfires, on stages, at storytelling gatherings, in church school and most anywhere they could find an audience.  They were active in The Dallas Storytelling Guild and the Tejas Storytellers.  They helped with first few Tejas Storytelling festivals in Denton.   Vee was always best with the younger audiences – they responded to her as she did to them.

Reading was an important part of her life.  She read all sorts of literature even that put out by academics for teacher consumption.  Her favorites, by far, were mysteries, especially those by women authors.  Later in life, she enjoyed political biographies and essays and the editorial pages of the paper.    She was an excellent editor (and speller) as well, and often helped her husband with his literary efforts.  She was a strong believer in reading to children, and had a large library of her own of books aimed at Fourth Graders and later First graders.  Her educational methods were based on a balance of sight reading and phonics, and she believed both were important.  If asked, she would say that reading was the most important skill she could impart to her students, and she was very, very good at it.

Besides teaching, collecting and jewelry manufacture, Vee enjoyed many other interests.  First, of course, was her family.  She learned hospitality from her mother, Roberta “Meem” Parker.  There was always a cookie or a piece of candy available to any child who needed one, hers or not.  Vee continued this tradition, with both family and students.  The boys each married, and there are seven grandchildren in the family – Scot Jr., Samantha, Brandon, Stephen, Justin, Matt and Alyssa.  Vee was also blessed with five great-grandchildren – Aaralyn, Landon, Madison, Abigail and Hailey.  Vee loved them all, and thoroughly enjoyed being with them.  Sadly, her oldest son Scott, Sr. passed away on July 9, 2005, from cancer.

A little detour...

August 17, 2015

She took a brief hiatus from teaching in 1984, after earning her Financial Planner’s Certification and her Private Investigator’s License.   She went to work for Manulife Insurance as a Financial Planner and Life insurance Application checker.  While she enjoyed the work, it was not financially remunerative, and she went back to teaching, which was always her first love. 

Family...

August 17, 2015

Vee married Clarence Bennett Perkins on August 22, 1958. They had two sons – Scott Vale Perkins, Sr., born July 13, 1959, and Paul Bennett Perkins, born June 17, 1963.  They were divorced on July 30, 1970.  Ben served in the Armed Forces, and the family moved several times, most notably to Florida and Oregon.  Besides teaching, Vee worked at several short-term jobs to help support the family.  After the divorce, she moved back to Dallas and re-entered the teaching profession full time.  She also threw a paper route and sold magazine subscriptions by phone. 

She married Charles Edward Williams on May 3, 1980, and he brought another son, Eric Charles Williams, with him.  She continued teaching and, with Charles’ help, kept throwing the paper as well. 

Education...

August 17, 2015

After graduating from HS, Vee attended Texas Woman’s University, graduating with a BS in Home Economics in 1961.  After graduation, she entered the teaching profession.  After brief stops at the Catholic Diesis of Dallas, Irving and Garland School districts, she joined Dallas ISD, first at Bushman and then at Mark Twain.  After a more extended stay there, she joined Stonewall Jackson as a fourth grade teacher and then as a first grade teacher.  She retired from Stonewall as a full-time teacher in 2006, but substituted until 2011.  

In the beginning....

August 17, 2015

Virginia was born October 17, 1939 to Vale and Roberta Parker in Dallas, Texas.  She grew up on Ellsworth Street in East Dallas and attended Elementary School at Stonewall Jackson Elementary, starting Kindergarten the first year Stonewall opened.  She was able to walk to school, along with the rest of the children on the street.  As most of them were boys, she became a tomboy, much to the distress of her mother, who insisted on dressing her in dresses.  The dresses tended to tear on the fences the group climbed over!  She never met a puddle she didn’t jump into, and ran everywhere she could.  Her biggest regret was that as an only child, she couldn’t get away with anything!  She then went on to Woodrow Wilson High School, from which she graduated in 1957.