Virginia M. ‘Jinny’ Weiss
Baltimore native, an avid outdoorswoman and gardener, was a globe-trotting World War II veteran and chemist
Virginia M. “Jinny” Weiss, a World War II veteran, chemist and avid world traveler, died in her sleep Sunday at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. The former longtime Owings Mills resident was 103.
The former Virginia Miller, daughter of Harold Miller and Mildred Miller, a guidance counselor, was born in Baltimore and raised on Bolton Hill.
A 1936 graduate of Western High School, Mrs. Weiss earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1940 from Goucher College, where she was a member of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.
She began her career in the laboratory at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a job that paid $70 a month, and then moved to the lab at Western Electric Corp.’s Point Breeze plant. Mrs. Weiss tested raw material used in the manufacturing of telephone cables and earned $25 a week.
In 1943, Mrs. Weiss enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, better known as the WAAC, where she served as a laboratory technician and instructor at Army posts in Colorado and Alabama.
At war’s end, she returned to her former job at Point Breeze, while taking advantage of the GI Bill to enroll in classes at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
While she did well academically, she found the research uninspiring and abandoned plans for a medical career, she told Goucher Magazine in 2019.
“I decided it wasn’t worth the struggle,” she said.
While on a 1948 Baltimore Ski Club outing, she met her future husband, Gerhardt “Gerry” Weiss, a Jew who fled his native country after the 1938 German Anschluss, and settled in New York City, where he was later joined by his parents.
The couple, who married in 1949, both shared an interest in skiing, hiking, camping and travel. After they began having children, Mrs. Weiss left her position at Western Electric and became a homemaker.
In 1954, they settled in Owings Mills, where her husband, after building a prototype pool on its grounds, established Freeform Pools, and later became owner and president of Maryland Pools Inc.
An outdoorswoman, Mrs. Weiss became a Girl Scout leader, and with her husband and four children, continued enjoying Baltimore Ski Club outings, camping and beach trips.
Their home became the setting for many pool and tennis gatherings for Glyndon United Methodist Church, student exchange organization American Field Service, school picnics, family celebrations and weddings.
A flower and vegetable gardener, she was known by many for her bouquets and raspberries, family members said.
Mrs. Weiss was an active member of Glyndon United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday school for many years.
In addition to tennis and swimming, Mrs. Weiss, who was known as “Jinny,” never lost her appetite for adventure and the open road. She traveled extensively throughout the United States and visited six continents.
She continued traveling until well into her 90s, including trips along the Rhine and Mekong rivers and to Costa Rica.
After her car’s muffler fell off when she was 99, Mrs. Weiss said, “My car died before I did,” according to a daughter, Betsy Huth, of Winter Springs, Florida, who added, “And then she gracefully relinquished driving.”
Mrs. Weiss and her husband moved to Blakehurst, where they were active members of the retirement community.
She was garden coordinator, co-chair of croquet, volunteered in the health care center and was a scholarship committee member.
She also identified and taught others about the trees found on the retirement community’s campus. Mrs. Weiss played a leading role in the effort that resulted in Blakehurst being recognized as a Backyard Habitat by the National Wildlife Foundation.
During the holidays, she was known for her Christmas cookie open houses, where residents dropped by for cookies and cheer.
Over the years, her children were beneficiaries of her hand knit sweaters, Christmas stockings and “delicious family feasts,” said Ms. Huth, who added that her mother could always be counted on for “treasured advice.”
For a decade, the couple wintered in Frisco, Colorado, where they “enjoyed downhill, cross country skiing and snowshoeing,” Ms. Huth said.
Her husband died in 2009.
Mrs. Weiss followed no particular regimen on her way to centenarian status. At 102, she was still playing croquet and participating in water aerobics.
“Her philosophy was to stay active, try new things and that never ended,” Ms. Huth said. “Not long before she died, even though she knew she wouldn’t, she wanted to learn pickleball.”
While she never smoked, Mrs. Weiss did enjoy sipping wine.
“She loved to cook and she loved to bake and had a sweet tooth for chocolate,” her daughter said. “She ate what she wanted and wanted what she ate. She never wanted a health conscious diet.”
A celebration of life will be held at 1 p.m. May 27 at Blakehurst, 1055 W. Joppa Road, Towson.
In addition to Ms. Huth, Mrs. Weiss is survived by a son, Tim Weiss of Mooresville, North Carolina; two other daughters, Susan Limburg of Phoenix, Baltimore County, and Cyndi Milberger of Pittsburgh; seven grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.