DEVOTEDLY, VIRGINIA:
The Life of Virginia Galvin Piper

EXCERPTS FROM A BIOGRAPHY, DECEMBER 2008
BY MELISSA PRITCHARD

Virginia was born on December 7, 1911, to Kenneth Neel Critchfield and Jessica Higley Critchfield in the front parlor of her maternal grandparents' late Victorian home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. In her earliest years, she lived in Wendell, Idaho, where her father, a civil engineer, built bridges along the Snake River, and her mother rode from ranch to ranch to give music lessons. She and her sister, Carol, moved back to Glen Ellyn with the family and then lived in St. Louis for a number of years. By 1930, Virginia and her family returned to Oak Park, Illinois.

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