Virginia Bertholf

Virginia Lou Bertholf died Wednesday, August 25th, 2021, at Madison County Memorial Hospital. She was 85. A Visitation will be held from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Saturday, August 28, 2021 at Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home, Winterset Chapel. A Graveside Service will follow at 3:00 p.m. at Clark Cemetery in Madison County. Memorials may be directed to the First Baptist Church of Watauga in Watauga, Texas. Online condolences may be left at www.caldwellparrish.com. Virginia Lou Bertholf was born on September 30, 1935, in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Joe and Lonnie (Foster) Wofford. A true Daughter of Texas, and the descendant of working class cattle ranchers and cotton field workers, her father settled in Fort Worth after finding work in the stockyards of Swift & Co. Her mother, Lonnie, was a seamstress who sewed many of Virginia’s clothes. During the War, and in the post-war years, “Ginger,” as she was known to friends, walked two blocks to the local movie theater every week with her mother to watch a steady stream of the Hollywood musicals, westerns, romantic comedies and mysteries that conjured a world of adventure, romance and magic for young teenagers of the era. She fell in love with Rock Hudson and James Dean, and many of the supporting actors who appeared frequently, such as Van Johnson and Glenn Ford, and never stopped loving the magic of movies. Ginger graduated from Fort Worth’s Carter Riverside High School in 1953, where she was a star tennis player, taking second in state competition. In college, she focused on Physical Education and had plans to coach tennis. Her educational path took her to North Texas State for a year, Texas Christian University for another year, then to Texas Women’s College, and Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where she focused on religious studies. She loved to tell the story of how she snuck away from campus one fall night to see an electric performance at a high school gym by a young Elvis Presley. If she had been caught it would have been a scandal. She remained an Elvis fan her entire life. Following her closest friend Bobbie Bunch to Los Angeles in the late 50’s, the two young women worked as secretaries at Rocketdyne, a rocket engine design and production company, then briefly at Pepperdine University in the administration offices (which afforded the chance to take further classes in religion), and eventually Systems Development Corporation, where she and Bobbie met their future husbands. Halden Bertholf of Winterset, Iowa, swept Ginger off her feet in his black Jaguar and a small Piper aircraft, and she married him in a double ceremony with Bobbie and Jon Allen, in their small Santa Monica apartment. The two couples started families and spent the rest of their lives in friendship, identifying as one large family, and each having three children over the next seven years. Her husband’s work took the family to Colorado Springs in 1971, and then back to Fort Worth, Texas, where she was to spend nearly all of the rest of her life. In the mid 70’s, Ginger began to work as a church secretary for small Baptist churches, eventually finding a home at the First Baptist Church of Watauga, which would become the center of her spiritual life and home for worship. There she and Halden (called “Clair”) cultivated friendships that remained important to them for forty-plus years. She sang in the choir, took part in many mission trips, and found purpose volunteering to teach English as a second language, literacy classes in prisons, and Vacation Bible School every summer. She especially loved working with children. In 2019 Ginger and Halden took on one last adventure and moved to his childhood home on a farm in Winterset, Iowa, with their daughter Linda. Here, they enjoyed nature, watching the changing seasons and the horses Linda adopted and raised. Ginger felt that she saw God every day in the fields, in the skies, in the birds, and in her heart. Virginia “Ginger” Lou Bertholf is survived by her children Joe Halden Bertholf of Fort Worth, Texas; Bret Bertholf of Denver, Colorado; and Linda Bertholf of Winterset, Iowa; Grandchildren Aaron Daniel Bertholf and his wife Angel, Lazarus Antonio DiGiacomo, and Jordan Hunter Bertholf; and her extended family: Bobbie Allen and her children Kim, Rob and Pennie; and Ludean Suarez and her daughters Gia, Miki and Chris.