Obituaries

Virginia Ann Strother Higgins, daughter of Dr Coble Duke and Virginia Hanna Strother passed away on November 26, 2024, at the wise age of 97 years, 6 weeks short of her 98th birthday. Her father Dr. Strother was a director of the Stout Clinic in Sherman and was instrumental in bringing radiation therapy for cancer to Sherman. Virginia and her younger sister Martha used to go on house calls all over North Texas and Southern Oklahoma with their father when they were growing up.

Virginia attended Sherman High School and was Editor of the high school yearbook as a senior, graduating in 1944. She enjoyed going to the dances at Perrin Field and dancing with the airmen during the war years.

After high school, she attended Randolph Macon Women’s College for two years in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she pledged Kappa Alpha Theta. She spent a summer studying Spanish in Guadalajara and transferred to the University of Texas, where she earned a BA in Spanish in 1948. While there, she met Ben Wayne Greig, Jr who was a Chi Phi and they married in 1949 in Sherman, moving to Austin to raise their family. They had four children, Brian Strother, Ann Elizabeth, Bruce William, and Virginia Holmes. In Austin, she was a member of the Junior League and volunteered at Laguna Gloria Art Museum and Planned Parenthood. She was an excellent seamstress and crocheted many beautiful blankets for her children, family and friends. She became very skilled in bridge, playing in tournaments and local bridge clubs until her vision failed in her mid 90s.

She divorced and married attorney Thomas Eugene Higgins. They moved to Denison, Texas in 1966 where Mr. Higgins practiced law in partnership with Charles Robinson, his brother-in-law. Virginia worked for the Texoma Regional Blood Bank as a screener and her son Bruce joined her there as a phlebotomist and her daughter Ginna as a screener. In the early 1980s, she opened a bridal boutique in Sherman. Her love of cooking and serving others led her to build a pink Victorian house near downtown Sherman where she and Tom opened Beginnings Catering and Tearoom. It was a busy spot for great food and good company. She retired in 2001 and continued to cook delicious meals for family and friends for many years after.

She was a member of the Denison Service League, the Garden Club, the Women’s Golf League at Denison Rod and Gun Club, Monodrama and since 1966, Waples United Methodist Church. She was President of the Sunday School Class for several years as well as serving as a Trustee for the Church and a member of the Cooking Committee. She supported the Sherman Community Players. She continued to play duplicate bridge including some training for Austin College students during their Bridge Course in January Term.

She volunteered many hours at the Bargain Box in Denison. After she retired, she continued her volunteer work, delivering Meals on Wheels 2-3 days a week beginning in 2000 until the age of 93; she knew all of her meal recipients and delighted in including small gifts for each of them for every holiday. She loved to hunt and fish with her husband and sister Martha, and they spent many summer nights in the country viewing the stars and planets and looking for satellites crossing the night sky. She and Martha made annual trips to the State Fair in Dallas to ride the ferris wheel and share a turkey leg. Well into her 80s, she mowed her several acre yard, always leaving random patches of wildflowers. At 82, she zip lined in Costa Rica, forever the adventurer!

Her greatest happiness came from her children and the peace of living in her beautiful country home. On her 80th birthday, her children fulfilled one of her dreams by taking her on a hot air balloon ride that ascended more than a mile above the surface of the Earth. She inspired all of her children to live a life of service: her eldest son became an attorney, her two daughters are nurses and her younger son is a medical technologist and professor at Vanderbilt University.

She is survived by her 4 children: Brian Greig and wife Jane; Elizabeth (Betsy) Greig; Bruce Greig and wife Lisa; Virginia (Ginna) Hall and partner James Paddock; and 5 grandchildren: Travis Darden Greig and wife Brett, Grace Greig Pulido and husband Raul, Devon Greig Rothfuss and husband Eric, Hanna Hall de Arzu and husband Roberto, and Claire Grace Hall and fiance Jackson Farley, as well as 6 great grandchildren: Dorothea Haber Greig, Charlotte Strother Greig, Connor Francis Pulido, Owen Wayne Pulido, Leo Sebastian Arzu Hall and Matias Caleb Arzu Hall; and her nieces Emily Robinson Fancher and husband Eric and Rebecca Robinson Stalllard.

Donations may be made in Virginia’s memory to Home Hospice of Grayson, Cooke and Fannin County.