Virgie was born on May 31, 1909, the second child of William Luther and Celia Etta Johnson. She was born in a two room house in Thalia, Foard County, Texas. When Virgie was old enough to go to school she and her older brother O'neal rode there in a two wheeled cart. As more of her siblings became old enough for school the cart grew into a buggy, the buggy grew into a hack drawn by two mules and that eventually grew into a bus. Virgie was the oldest girl of 11 chlildren. She looked after all of her younger siblings and did all the cooking and cleaning while the family worked out in the field. Despite severe headaches throughout her life she always did her work well. Vergie also did well in school. She graduated high school in 1927.

After high school Vergie went to Wayland Baptist College in Plainview, Texas. She was an artist on the school yearbook staff and majored in home economics. While she was in college she dated a young man named Raymond Jonas. After Virgie graduated college they were married at the Baptist Church in Thalia, Texas. The first place they lived was with Ray's parents, Felix and Mary Jonas on their farm which was northwest of her brother O'neal's farm. During this time Virgie was a faithfully attended church services and Sunday School and she was a member of the Baptist Young People's Union. She was the church pianist when her Aunt Murtle was unable to make it to sunday service. Vergie and Ray also attended public singings where Ray would sing and Vergie would play the piano. When the young couple moved away from the Jonas farm them stayed at the Early and Fannie Shaw farm northwest of Thalia for a while, but moved to Amarillo soon after WWII broke out in 1941, so that Ray could get a defense related job.

Virgie was a homemaker and had a tremendous work ethic. Her house was always immaculate and was tastefully, if not expensively furnished. She dusted the furniture and window sills twice a day to combat the West Texas dust. Vergie welcomed friends into her home, young and old. She always made sure there was enough Kool-Aid in the refridgerator and homemade cookies and snacks for the children. Vergie was a very proper lady and she expected the same of her daughters who seldom needed correction . However Vergie was quick to discipline the girls when they needed it. Profanity was not tolerated in her household. She always said that cursing was the sign of a crude person who was not educated enough to express his feelings with proper words. The girls grew up thinking that "dad bobbit" (which Papa Johnson said) was the worst thing a person could utter.

Vergie loved to garden. She had a large Victory Garden during WWII and she canned all the vegetables that her family did not eat. She was also very frugal and found a way to provide buffalo meat to her family during the war while other families only lived on their rations of beef. She then traded her meat stamps for someone else's sugar stamps so she would have enough for canning and jelly making. She carfully planned and stored the families food, so that they always had enough to eat. She did such a good job that a neighbor reported the family to the FBI because they thought the family was hoarding food in their cellar even though they didn't have one.

Unfortunately Ray died in 1953 at the age of 45 of heart failure. After he died she worked in a department store for a while. She eventually married a close family friend, Noel Greer. Noel worked for the railroad, so Virgie was up a lot of nights, fixing lunches and taking her husband to and from work. Unfortunatley Vergie's headaches got worse and she eventually fell into a coma in Hereford, Texas. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor and rushed to Lubbock to undergo surgery. Doctors could not remove all of the malignant tumor so she was only given six months to live. She died on August 24, 1964 at the age of 55. She is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Amarillo.

Virgie is my Great-Great Grandfather's sister.