Virginia Carter Anderson King

Published 3:15 pm Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Virginia Carter Anderson King

March 1, 1928 – October 21, 2024

Virginia Carter Anderson was born March 1, 1928, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Carter Henry Anderson and Mildred Melodie Bunnell. She grew up in Mauston, Wisconsin, moving in her junior year to Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where she graduated from high school. In 1950, she graduated from Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, with a BA in English.

She met John Davidson King at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1951. They were married in Mauston on August 23, 1952, and came west, living in Billings, Montana for several years.

In October 1958, they drove up the Alaska Highway, settling in Anchorage, where she worked in an insurance claims office. They moved to Fairbanks in 1963 for drier weather and the first state land auction, living north of the town on a south slope. (Below -40 they could not see the city for the ice fog, but could see Denali in the sun, 250 miles away.)

After the Fairbanks flood of 1967, they came out to Washington State, and then moved to Oregon in 1972, first to LaGrande, where she worked as the director of The Union County Museum, and in 1982 to Ashland.

Virginia worked at the business office of Southern Oregon University for 11 years, retiring in 1993. She was treasurer of Caring Friends for 13 years; was active in the sewing group at Trinity Episcopal Church; a member of the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society and “Rogue Readers” book club. She was a firm supporter of the Ashland Library – reading and enabling others to read meant a lot to her.

She is survived by a nephew-in-law, Paul Minault and his wife Joni, of California.

Her parents; her husband, John; her brother, Eric Anderson; and sister-in-law Barbara Webb Anderson of Baker City, Oregon preceded her in death. Her ashes will be buried with John’s in the cemetery at North Powder, Oregon.

A memorial service with be held on Saturday, November 16 th at Trinity Episcopal Church, 44 N 2nd St, Ashland, at 2PM. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the SOU Foundation, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, Or 97520, to support the John and Virginia King Scholarship for Native Americans.