Virginie Bennett Brown died peacefully at home on July 12, in Baltimore, Md. Most of her family was there with her.
Ginie was born on Aug. 4, 1929 in Canton, Ohio, the daughter of Donald V. and Leonie L. Bennett. She attended high school in Washington, D.C., and was a 1951 graduate of the University of Maryland. At the University of Maryland, she was editor of the Terrapin, a member of Alpha Chi Omega, and tapped for Mortarboard, among many other academic honors.
After graduation, she moved to New York City, N.Y. and was a researcher and reporter for Time Magazine. What began as an interview for a story, ended in a marriage to John Waldo Sheldon in 1958. They lived in Greenwich, Conn., until moving to South Bristol in 1972.
The community of South Bristol was very close to Ginie s heart. In the over 30 years during which she lived there, she contributed a great deal. She was a volunteer art teacher in the elementary school for 11 years, and an EMT and founding member of the South Bristol First Responder Unit. She worked on the expansion of the Rutherford Library and on the development of the Summer Lecture Series in support of the Gulf of Maine Foundation at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole. She was also active in the South Bristol Union Church and sang in the choir.
Ginie loved music and played many early instruments, including a variety of recorders, dulcimer, and gemshorn. One of her greatest joys was discovering obscure places to walk with her good companions and she spent many peaceful hours adrift her red canoe. She was a wonderful traveling companion. As a reporter for Time Magazine, she spent time in South America. Later, she traveled to Europe, Greece, the Soviet Union, Canada, and all across the United States. She loved books of all kinds, was an excellent writer, and had a deep interest in genealogy.
In 1997, she married William E. Brown and moved to Baltimore, Md. They were happily married until Bill’s death in February 2008.
She is survived by her daughters and their spouses, Léonie Stone and Michael Giles, Priscilla Sheldon and Marcia Noyes, and Virginie and Jack Gilmore; her grandchildren, Caitlin and Veda Cost, and Jonathan Stone; and her friend and former husband, John Sheldon. Ginie was a loving and supportive friend, mother, and grandmother.
Memorial service 2 p.m., Sat., Aug. 30 at the South Bristol Union Church, in South Bristol. Celebration of the lives of Virginie and William Brown and internment of their ashes will be held in Baltimore, Md. in the fall.
In lieu of flowers, donations could be made to either the Gulf of Maine Foundation, c/o Darling Marine Center, 193 Clark’s Cove Rd., Walpole, ME 04573 or Rutherford Library, P.O. Box 145, South Bristol, ME 04568-0145.