In Memory

Virginia Wilson (Yerxa) - Class Of 1938

Virginia Wilson (Yerxa)

Virginia Wilson Yerxa was born in Olympia, Washington on December 23, 1920 and died in Colusa, California on October 21, 2009.  She grew up with parents Ken and Dorothy Wilson and brothers Ken and David in the neighborhood hills of Pasadena, California, where she graduated from Polytechnic School and South Pasadena High School.

She left for Bennington College in Vermont in 1938 on the train, to revel in brilliant autumn leaves, snowfalls, and springs; studying poetry, education, and social work, and meeting lifelong friends from the East Coast.  When World War II intervened, she returned to California and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1944 with a degree in English, enjoying the 40's spirited campus life amidst the war years.  She then ran a Montessori nursery school in Pasadena while volunteering at the Red Cross.  The continuing war compelled her to study occupational therapy at Milwaukee Downer College, and afterward, she moved to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where the Greenbrier Hotel had been turned into a veterans' hospital.  After the war, she returned to Pasadena to work in the hospitals there.  On March 8, 1947, she married Charles Tuttle Yerxa, whom she had met through family friends when he was commissioned as a Naval lieutenant commander on a destroyer escort in 1942, serving in the Pacific for five years.

Virginia was thrilled to begin married life in Colusa.  She loved the farming area, and especially the beautiful town.  She joined Omega Nu, led Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts troops for many years in the old scout building in the park, and taught Sunday school.  She also started and managed the Colusa County Blood Bank, and the Colusa Public Health Department as an outgrowth of the Colusa County Tuberculosis and Health Association.  Virginia worked with so many other Colusans to endow and build the Colusa Community Hospital.  She began the Pap Smear Clinic which she ran for seven years.

Virginia helped in the process to build (and greatly enjoy) the Colusa Golf Course.  She threw her efforts in with many others to help save the important county architectural monuments of the town such as the courthouse, the Princeton ferry, and most notably the beautiful red brick original Colusa High School, all of which that make Colusa so distinctive today.  While on the Planning Commission, she worked consistently to maintain the small town character of Colusa.

As her four children went through Colusa schools, Virginia volunteered for many school activities.  She organized slide presentations of trips she and Charlie had taken all over the world, including Egypt, China, Iran, and Africa.  She drove her wood-paneled station wagon to countless athletic events and field trips, and was extremely active in the PTA.  In 2000, Virginia was awarded the Golden Apple for her lifetime of service to the schools and school children.

She eventually ran for the Colusa Unified School Board, a position she held for twenty-five years.  Her purpose was to push for higher reading skills, and higher educational goals, so that all of the children of Colusa would have the opportunities to enter colleges, or have the skills they would need later in life, and, especially simply to enjoy learning.  She made an effort to know each child and because she did know them, Virginia hosted at her home junior-senior proms, baccalaureates, summer music concerts, end of school parties, alternative school graduations, reunions, and weddings.  She lent her furniture and rugs for the junior plays and Stage Hand productions, often to the surprise of her husband Charlie when he attended the performances.  Her passion for music led her to attend the symphony, opera and theatre regularly in San Francisco, and many were the carloads of her children and their friends who would do the grand tour of museums and historical sites in the City, and up and down California.  She later repeated these grand tours with her grandchildren, whom she adored.

She was passionate about democracy, spending many afternoons uptown registering everyone she could to vote.  She served as the Republican Central Committee Chairman in Colusa County for longer than anyone could possibly figure out, attending many political caucuses and conventions, running campaigns and having fundraisers for office holder's from state senators to governors to presidents.  She was very proud to be appointed to the State Board of Food and Agriculture, and the State Board of Improving Life Through Service.

She loved the color red.  Her natural artistic exuberance displayed itself in her glorious floral arrangements.  She seemed to produce them effortlessly, and did not mind picking all the available flowers in her garden and stopping by the side of the road to fill in with more wild greens, spotted from the speeding car as she delivered her treasures to someone sick, or someone getting married or the altar of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, where she served on the Vestry and the Altar Guild.

Virginia was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers, her husband Charles Tuttle Yerxa, and grandson John Charles Yerxa.  She is survived by her four children: Woody Yerxa and wife Kathy, of Colusa; Alison Yerxa of Los Angeles; Dorothy Yerxa Reinhart and husband Michael, of Davis; and Charles T. Yerxa, Jr. and wife Elizabeth, of Colusa.  She is also survived by eight grandchildren: Melissa and Mitchell Yerxa; Virginia Marie, Alicia, and Elliot Reinhart; and Abigail, Wilson, and Cyrus Yerxa; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Willows Journal, October 28, 2009