Virginia Haggardt was born in Sturgis, South Dakota November 15, 1914. She passed away on Thanksgiving Day 2009 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Virginia was born in a Sturgis far different of the image that most people have of it today because of the association with the motorcycle rally held there for the last sixty-nine years. During the event the town is buried in thousands and thousand of loud, rambunctious motorized revelers, then when the last rumble echoes down the hills, the town return to its tranquil life of a little town of roughly six thousand people.
For Virginia, Sturgis and the Black Hills would be the place where she would return time and time over looking for solace, reprieve and sweet memories when life was getting a little too harsh.
She was the daughter of Al Bodley, known by his family as “Sonny”, and his wife Alice Davenport herself known as Oshie.
Sonny was a tall handsome man born in 1880 in a farm in Ohio. A bit of an athlete he became a semi professional Baseball player at the turn of the Century. Eager for a larger horizon than the one offered by a farm boy life, Sonny became a traveling Safe salesmen in the Midwestern states while studying law on his own. He “read” his law degrees and became a lawyer, as was the practice at the time.
Oshie was the daughter of a couple of early settlers of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Her Dad had been a drummer boy in the Union Army during the Civil War and her mother actually walked thru the Plains to join her husband in Sturgis. They where a couple of Pioneers displaying both the ruggedness needed for survival in the early times of the Gold Rush and the Civility and Culture of New England. Oshie character was a reflection of those values, holding her place well in the life in the hills but send out to an Eastern University for a “Proper Education”, an unusual combination in those times.
Sonny fell in love with Oshie and then started the Herculean task of not only gaining the love of Oshie but also chiseling his way thru the stout defenses of the father of the bride to be and the enormous reticence of the big brother of Oshie, Jarvis Davenport, who was not about letting his “Little Sister” get victimized by some sweet talking stranger.
Sonny’s task was finally met with success. Oshie and Sonny got married and in November 15, 1914 Virginia was born.
Upon Sonny’s return from World War One the family moved to Sioux Falls.
Virginia childhood was an easy, privileged and magical one. She would enjoy the education of a small private Episcopal School in Sioux Falls (All Saints School) where she formed some lifelong friendship. Virginia recalled those times and most vividly the times when the family had to take only showers since the access of the bathtub was hindered by Sonny’s use of it to manufacture home made gin during the Prohibition. Her vacation where spend back in Sturgis where she enjoyed careening thru the hills, standing on the footboard of the car of her Idol: her uncle Jarvis Davenport.
She became a respectable equestrian, equally at ease on a Western or English saddle and was at time opening the parade of the Days of Seventy-Six in nearby Deadwood, riding the Golden Horse. She inherited from Jarvis as well a wicked game of Gin Rummy.
It is during those times that she acquired a strong spiritual attachment to a place in the Hills known by the family as “The Dams”. That is where the roots of the family belong and it was Virginia’s Camelot. Throughout her life, when things were getting a little to hard or that a source of strength was needed, Virginia would go back to the dams, the cabins in the wood and the traces of the lives of her ancestors.
In line with the family traditions, Virginia was send to the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia from where she graduated in 1937. Those where the times of the railroad travel and of the Great Depression.
Upon graduation Virginia worked as a Social Worker in Custer South Dakota.
In 1942 she was married and from that union two daughters were born, my wife Virginia (Jinny) and Julie. The family lived in Santa Barbara.
In 1944 Virginia and her husband build a lodge in her beloved Black Hill: the Powder House in Keystone, still operating under this name today. Virginia memories of those times were of challenges, hope, excitement and the struggle of trying to keep her Chef within the confine of relative sobriety. They had hired the only decent chef available in the area. The gentlemen had a respectable culinary reputation and was known Hills-wise as the maker of the most outstanding “Truite Au Bleu” in the area, providing, off course, that he was kept sober long enough to practice his magic. Trying to keep the housekeeping staff, mainly local college kids out of trouble was also a titanic job since the fresh air of the hills seemed to have an invigorating effect on said teenagers libido.
Her daughter getting older and close of school age brought the sale of the Lodge and the family moved to California. There Virginia would see the end of her marriage and find herself alone to raise her two daughters. She returned to Sioux Falls and lived there for the rest of her life taking care of her aging parents as well.
Virginia never remarried.
Her intellectual and spiritual curiosity became the driving force of her life.
She traveled extensively in the US and abroad, visiting England, France, Italy, Germany, Israel, Egypt and Brazil.
Virginia faith drove her to a deep involvement in her Church as a very active member and also a Lay Minister. She studied in depth all subject within her grasp, sometime with great success, some other time with maybe, a little less success. One point in particular was her adventures in the Choir motivating her at time to give a demonstration of her perceived vocal ability, to the great dismay of the family left in that event without a way of escape. Her singing, of a very high pitch trembled voice, of traditional Episcopalian Hymns would have, no doubt, brought the fear of God to the most harden, barbaric atheist tribes of the savage world.
Her strong intellectual curiosity prompted her to dive deep in research on the saga of Luther Pendragon and King Arthur and the Sciences of the Mind from ESP and Mind Control to the power of Pyramids. Her family was at time very concerned, but in fact it was not as much an eccentricity out of control than a deep thirst for knowledge and the desire to see if there was any meat on some of those sometime mythical bones.
Virginia met all the setbacks of her life; they were all severe, with grace and dignity. A distinguished equestrian she was, because of a spinal injury, unable to ride after the birth of her children’s. An avid reader she suffered of macular degeneration causing an almost total blindness in the later years of her life and a serious hearing impairment brought almost total silence in her life.
Throughout all the difficulties of the later part of her life, Virginia endured.
On the morning of Thanksgiving Day 2009 Virginia had difficulties waking up but with nursing help was able to get up. She joined her companions of the Hospice of Dow Rummel in Sioux Falls for lunch and after a quiet day retired in the evening, went to bed and passed away in her sleep.
Virginia was a gracious, generous and loving mother in law to me.
If there are hills in the Heaven of her Faith I know they will be her favorite place and if there are Parade in Heaven, I know, deep in my heart, that Virginia will be leading it riding the Golden Horse.
Enjoy Heaven, Virginia Haggardt, you deserve it and earned that honor on Earth.
We miss you already.
Virginia was born in a Sturgis far different of the image that most people have of it today because of the association with the motorcycle rally held there for the last sixty-nine years. During the event the town is buried in thousands and thousand of loud, rambunctious motorized revelers, then when the last rumble echoes down the hills, the town return to its tranquil life of a little town of roughly six thousand people.
For Virginia, Sturgis and the Black Hills would be the place where she would return time and time over looking for solace, reprieve and sweet memories when life was getting a little too harsh.
She was the daughter of Al Bodley, known by his family as “Sonny”, and his wife Alice Davenport herself known as Oshie.
Sonny was a tall handsome man born in 1880 in a farm in Ohio. A bit of an athlete he became a semi professional Baseball player at the turn of the Century. Eager for a larger horizon than the one offered by a farm boy life, Sonny became a traveling Safe salesmen in the Midwestern states while studying law on his own. He “read” his law degrees and became a lawyer, as was the practice at the time.
Oshie was the daughter of a couple of early settlers of the Black Hills of South Dakota. Her Dad had been a drummer boy in the Union Army during the Civil War and her mother actually walked thru the Plains to join her husband in Sturgis. They where a couple of Pioneers displaying both the ruggedness needed for survival in the early times of the Gold Rush and the Civility and Culture of New England. Oshie character was a reflection of those values, holding her place well in the life in the hills but send out to an Eastern University for a “Proper Education”, an unusual combination in those times.
Sonny fell in love with Oshie and then started the Herculean task of not only gaining the love of Oshie but also chiseling his way thru the stout defenses of the father of the bride to be and the enormous reticence of the big brother of Oshie, Jarvis Davenport, who was not about letting his “Little Sister” get victimized by some sweet talking stranger.
Sonny’s task was finally met with success. Oshie and Sonny got married and in November 15, 1914 Virginia was born.
Upon Sonny’s return from World War One the family moved to Sioux Falls.
Virginia childhood was an easy, privileged and magical one. She would enjoy the education of a small private Episcopal School in Sioux Falls (All Saints School) where she formed some lifelong friendship. Virginia recalled those times and most vividly the times when the family had to take only showers since the access of the bathtub was hindered by Sonny’s use of it to manufacture home made gin during the Prohibition. Her vacation where spend back in Sturgis where she enjoyed careening thru the hills, standing on the footboard of the car of her Idol: her uncle Jarvis Davenport.
She became a respectable equestrian, equally at ease on a Western or English saddle and was at time opening the parade of the Days of Seventy-Six in nearby Deadwood, riding the Golden Horse. She inherited from Jarvis as well a wicked game of Gin Rummy.
It is during those times that she acquired a strong spiritual attachment to a place in the Hills known by the family as “The Dams”. That is where the roots of the family belong and it was Virginia’s Camelot. Throughout her life, when things were getting a little to hard or that a source of strength was needed, Virginia would go back to the dams, the cabins in the wood and the traces of the lives of her ancestors.
In line with the family traditions, Virginia was send to the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia from where she graduated in 1937. Those where the times of the railroad travel and of the Great Depression.
Upon graduation Virginia worked as a Social Worker in Custer South Dakota.
In 1942 she was married and from that union two daughters were born, my wife Virginia (Jinny) and Julie. The family lived in Santa Barbara.
In 1944 Virginia and her husband build a lodge in her beloved Black Hill: the Powder House in Keystone, still operating under this name today. Virginia memories of those times were of challenges, hope, excitement and the struggle of trying to keep her Chef within the confine of relative sobriety. They had hired the only decent chef available in the area. The gentlemen had a respectable culinary reputation and was known Hills-wise as the maker of the most outstanding “Truite Au Bleu” in the area, providing, off course, that he was kept sober long enough to practice his magic. Trying to keep the housekeeping staff, mainly local college kids out of trouble was also a titanic job since the fresh air of the hills seemed to have an invigorating effect on said teenagers libido.
Her daughter getting older and close of school age brought the sale of the Lodge and the family moved to California. There Virginia would see the end of her marriage and find herself alone to raise her two daughters. She returned to Sioux Falls and lived there for the rest of her life taking care of her aging parents as well.
Virginia never remarried.
Her intellectual and spiritual curiosity became the driving force of her life.
She traveled extensively in the US and abroad, visiting England, France, Italy, Germany, Israel, Egypt and Brazil.
Virginia faith drove her to a deep involvement in her Church as a very active member and also a Lay Minister. She studied in depth all subject within her grasp, sometime with great success, some other time with maybe, a little less success. One point in particular was her adventures in the Choir motivating her at time to give a demonstration of her perceived vocal ability, to the great dismay of the family left in that event without a way of escape. Her singing, of a very high pitch trembled voice, of traditional Episcopalian Hymns would have, no doubt, brought the fear of God to the most harden, barbaric atheist tribes of the savage world.
Her strong intellectual curiosity prompted her to dive deep in research on the saga of Luther Pendragon and King Arthur and the Sciences of the Mind from ESP and Mind Control to the power of Pyramids. Her family was at time very concerned, but in fact it was not as much an eccentricity out of control than a deep thirst for knowledge and the desire to see if there was any meat on some of those sometime mythical bones.
Virginia met all the setbacks of her life; they were all severe, with grace and dignity. A distinguished equestrian she was, because of a spinal injury, unable to ride after the birth of her children’s. An avid reader she suffered of macular degeneration causing an almost total blindness in the later years of her life and a serious hearing impairment brought almost total silence in her life.
Throughout all the difficulties of the later part of her life, Virginia endured.
On the morning of Thanksgiving Day 2009 Virginia had difficulties waking up but with nursing help was able to get up. She joined her companions of the Hospice of Dow Rummel in Sioux Falls for lunch and after a quiet day retired in the evening, went to bed and passed away in her sleep.
Virginia was a gracious, generous and loving mother in law to me.
If there are hills in the Heaven of her Faith I know they will be her favorite place and if there are Parade in Heaven, I know, deep in my heart, that Virginia will be leading it riding the Golden Horse.
Enjoy Heaven, Virginia Haggardt, you deserve it and earned that honor on Earth.
We miss you already.
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