Virginia Wrenne Kingsbury

PORTLAND, OR - Virginia Wrenne Kingsbury (née Murray), of Portland, Ore., died peacefully in hospice care on April 23, four years after being diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia. She was 88 years old. She is preceded in death by her parents, older brother Joe Murray and older sisters Beth Covello and Therese Murray (who died in childhood). Survivors include her husband of 64 years, David Kingsbury; seven children: Paul (Peggy), Virginia (Hendrik), David (Nancy), Daniel, Robert (Fauzia), Jim (Kim) and Sarah (David); and 11 grandchildren: Vivian, Selina, Teut, Fadwa, Aaya, Emma, Sam, Ben, Cooper, Cole and Clara.

Virginia was born on January 24, 1934, in the Bronx in New York City. Her father, Joseph Murray, was a bank loan officer who had served in combat in France during World War I, and her mother, Elizabeth Burns Murray, originally from Nashville, Tenn., was a secretary and then a homemaker. Virginia was a warm-hearted and cheerful person who had many friends her whole life long. She attended St. Barnabas High School in New York (where, among other activities, she was a cheerleader) and graduated from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York with a bachelor of science in nursing. She practiced nursing for two years before marriage to David Kingsbury in 1957, then was an instructor in surgical nursing at Yale University the following year.

She was a homemaker for 30 years after that, rearing the couple’s seven children, first in New Haven, Conn., while husband David completed medical school and post-doctoral training, and then in Memphis, Tenn., where he became a research investigator at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for 25 years. In her later years in Memphis, Virginia volunteered for VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). When the couple moved to Washington, D.C., in 1988, she volunteered full-time for Meals on Wheels, where she started out making meal deliveries to elderly people in need, and then rose to positions of leadership, including office manager in the Washington chapter. She made many friends through Meals on Wheels and in the Washington area.

In 2013, Virginia and David moved to Portland and settled into Terwilliger Terrace, where she was a faithful member of the Life Enrichment volunteer team, bringing social engagement to members in assisted living. She was a spirited and nurturing woman of many interests, who enjoyed books, movies, music, cooking, family and friends. She often sang around the house while doing household chores, instilling in her children a lifelong love of music. She fulfilled the roles of quartermaster, logistics lead, triage nurse and mediator with enthusiasm, boundless energy and love. She enjoyed travel and visited Europe many times, in addition to Argentina, Chile and Japan. A lifelong lover of all things British, she greatly enjoyed the two times she lived in England during David’s sabbatical leaves for scientific work — 1973-1974 in London (with the entire family) and 1984-1985 in Oxford. She left a lasting mark on many lives and helped many a person in need.

Memorial gifts may be made to the charity of your choice or to Meals on Wheels America. No services scheduled.