Worthington, Virginia Lucille (Ehrig)(Swenson)(Somers)(07/02/1940–12/28/2005). Virginia Ehrig attended Grinnell for her freshman year (1957-58) as an early entrant before high school graduation. She lived in Cleveland Hall and was active at the campus radio station (KGRW) and the campus drama group (Grinnell Players). In May 1958 she married Grinnell classmate Curtis Russell Swenson, and in a decision that broke her heart the College demanded that both of them leave because they got married. Later, not surprisingly, she registered a “strongly negative” reaction to her year at the College.
Virginia then transferred to Macalester College, but she received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1965 and 1970 respectively.
Virginia and Curt had two children (Katherine Anne and John Michael). After divorce, Virginia in 1967 married U.S. Air Force Major Richard Keith Somers, who died in 1971. In 1975 she married Ross L. Worthington, who died in 1978. A year later she married LeRoy C. “Bud” Kinnie, but retained her “Worthington” married name.
In the midst of all of this, she attended law school at Gonzaga University and received its J.D. degree in 1975. She then practiced family law with her third husband and fellow attorney in the firm of Worthington & Worthington in Spokane, Washington until his death; afterwards, in her own firm until 1999 when she moved to Seattle to care for her mother (Frances Hansen Ehrig ’37).
Virginia died in 2005 after a long battle with breast cancer. She was survived by her two children, her sister (Margaret Ehrig Dunn ’65) and her nephew (James W. Dunn ’01).
