The Rev. Virginia Thomas ('78) has Died

(this notice is from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, May 18, 2011)

At St. Alban’s, Vermont,

on Saturday, April 30, 2011

occurred the death of

The Rev. Virginia Thomas

The Burial Office will be read

at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2011

at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

323 Church Street

Enosburg Falls, Vermont

The Rt. Rev. Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont, officiating

The Rev. Virginia Thomas, one of the first women to be ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church and the founder of the Dolphins Program of the Merion Deanery in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, was born in Utica, New York, on November 22, 1917. She graduated from Cornell University, majoring in French, in 1938, received an M.A. in Religion from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1978, and was ordained by the Rt. Rev. Lyman Ogilby that same year. From 1979 to 1988, she led the Dolphins Program, a visitation ministry of volunteers who call on lonely people in nursing homes and become their one-on-one companions. Upon her retirement in 1988, she and her husband moved to rural Vermont, where she continued to serve as a deacon at St. Matthew’s, Enosburg Falls. Until a month before her death, she regularly preached sermons that were known for their good humor, sound theology, and thoughtful insights into family life and the world around her. She is survived by three children from her marriage of sixty-eight years, and numerous grand-children and great-grandchildren.

Rest eternal grant to her, O Lord, 
and let light perpetual shine upon her.

(Hat tip to Prof. Wil Gafney)