Virginia is survived by her six children and their spouses, Katherine Boyd and Larry Palnick, of New York City; Thomas and Monica Boyd, of St. Thomas, VI; William and Bonnie Boyd of Snellville, Georgia; David and Cathy Boyd, of Flowery Branch, Georgia; James and Jeanie Boyd of Marietta, Georgia; and Melanie Boyd Fanelli and her husband Paul, of Marietta, Georgia; and four grandsons, eight granddaughters, and five great-grandchildren. Virginia’s husband, Winfrey Boyd, died in 2003 after a long illness.
Born in Lake City, Kansas on September 14, 1921, Virginia Carolyn was the beloved only child of Harry and Gladys Spohr. The family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma soon after, where Virginia attended Central High School, studied the violin, and developed a lifelong love of classical music and English literature. After her graduation in 1941 from Teachers’ College at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Virginia returned to Muskogee and taught high-school English until 1946.
In 1944 she met Winfrey Boyd, a captain with the U.S. Army’s 42nd Rainbow Division, at a USO party at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. They corresponded while he was stationed in Europe, then were married in Muskogee on March 22, 1946. Afterward they drove to New Orleans for a honeymoon and to see Winfrey’s parents, Sidney and Roy Boyd, then to Knoxville, Tennessee, near Winfrey’s home town of Concord, where they lived for the next fourteen years.
Winfrey worked for Winfrey Brothers Stone Setting Company, a family business, as a national contractor, traveling frequently on business. Virginia devoted herself lovingly to her demanding role as wife and the mother of five of the couple’s six children who were born in Knoxville: Mary Katherine in 1947, Thomas Winfrey in 1949, William Harry in 1951, David Lynn in 1954, and James Edward in 1957. She was a faithful member of the First Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Knoxville.
In 1961, with the sale of Winfrey Brothers to Georgia Marble Company, the family moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia. Their sixth child, Melanie Ann. was born in 1966. Virginia was a member of the Kirkwood Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Atlanta but later joined the Belvedere SDA Church in Decatur. She worked for several years in the early 1960s as secretary to the student counselor at Clarkston High School, which her older children attended. In 1973, when Melanie started the second grade at Atlanta Junior Academy, Virginia became the school secretary in conjunction with her work as secretary of the Belvedere SDA Church.
In 2006, Virginia moved to Marietta to live with her daughter Melanie, who became her primary support. She attended the Marietta Seventh-Day Adventist Church. For health reasons, Virginia moved in 2009 to Savannah Court Assisted Living Residence in Marietta.
There will be a memorial service on Saturday, October 8, at 3:00 p.m., at the Marietta Seventh-Day-Adventist Church, 1330 Cobb Parkway North in Marietta, and a visitation on Friday evening, October 7, from 6-8 p.m., at the Woodstock Funeral Home, 8855 Main Street, Woodstock, Georgia.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Habitat for Humanity, online at http://www.habitat.org/support/ or by calling 800-422-4828.
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