Virginia Houston

April 10, 1925-September 24, 2012

Virginia Houston died in Dallas, Texas, after 87 years of striving for the horizon. Her body had been failing her for many years, but her soul continued to reach after more knowledge, more books, and more new places.

Virginia Lee Lipscomb was born in Temple, Texas to Frances and Joe Lipscomb. The Lipscomb family heritage was a source of pride. Having arrived in Virginia from England in the 17th century, they migrated over the generations to Texas, where Virginia’s great-grandfather, Joel Abner Lipscomb, was secretary of state of the Republic of Texas. Virginia spent her high school years in Terrell, where she developed her passion for acting and witnessed history in the arrival in Terrell of the Royal Air Force training base preceding and during World War II. She attended the University of Texas, where she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and was president of the Curtain Club and played leading roles in seven major productions of the UT Drama Department. Upon graduation, she helped organize and served on the board of an Equity traveling stock company, Interstate Players, financed by Interstate Theaters.

She married Bob Lockart, the brother of one of her fellow actors, in 1947. As she and Bobby raised their family, she became a three-time board member of the Junior League of Austin, cherished a lifetime friendship with her sewing club, and served on the Zeta House Board, until Bobby’s death in 1964. As a young widow, she worked for the Texas Senate as assistant calendar clerk and later became auction manager at KLRN for three years. She learned to sail and crew for Bill Houston, who would become her husband in 1971. Virginia and Bill restored and lived in the Bremond carriage house on West 7th, where they lived 27 years. During those years she was a founding board member of Recording for the Blind, was on the board of the Live Oak Theater and on the Seton Development Board. Together, Virginia and Bill traveled adventurously and everywhere, from South America to India to Sri Lanka to South Africa. Bill Houston died in 2004. After Bill’s death, she eventually moved to Dallas and was living at The Forum at Park Lane when she died.

Virginia was a devoted mother of two children, Fran Lockart Hillyer and Robert Lockart and a fascinating grandmother to four grandchildren, Julia Lockart, Christopher Lockart, Nathan Hillyer, and Matt Hillyer, and a great-grandmother to Naomi Hillyer and Sophia Hillyer. These children and her step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Louise Houston Rogers, June and Mark Chandler and Katie Chandler; Margaret van Hofwegan and Grace, Anna, and Olivia van Hofwegan; Will and Tina Houston, Elizabeth and Stephen Beal and Houston, Blakeley, and AnnMarie Beal; Leslie and Theron Bryant and Ava Bryant; and David and Bradley Houston, were the joy of her life. Also surviving are her brother The Reverend William Lipscomb and his wife Shirley and family, and by her beloved sister-in-law Olivia Lockart Vlahos and her family. Virginia’s life was enriched by her lifelong passions for theater, poetry, reading, travel, and her never-failing sense of humor.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Virginia Lipscomb Curtain Club Endowed Scholarship, in care of Sondra Lomax, 1 University Station, D-1400, Austin, TX 78712. Services will be held on Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 3201 Windsor Road, Austin, TX 78703, and in Dallas at The Forum at Park Lane, on Tuesday, October 2, at 11:00 a.m. in the Robertson Room.