Virginia Alice Stoeltzing Beckmann

Virginia Alice Stoeltzing Beckmann passed away on January 13, 2017 at the age of 97.
Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m., Monday, January 16, 2017 at the St. Luke Evangelical Free Church, 700 MO-224, Wellington, MO, 64097. Visitation will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Monday January 16, 2017 at the church. Burial will be in the St. Luke Cemetery. In lieu of flowers memorials are suggested to the City Union Mission. Memories and condolences for the family may be left at www.ralphojones.com or on our Facebook Page. Arrangements have been entrusted to the Ralph O. Jones Funeral Home, 306 S. 2nd St., Odessa, MO, 64076, 816-633-5524.
Virginia was born on December 1, 1919 in Kansas City, Mo., the ninth child of Emma Schwenk Stoeltzing and Martin Stoeltzing. The Stoeltzing family owned a local hardware store, and Virginia, who was especially close with her mother and older sister Clara, carried the vivid memories of childhood well into her 90s.
The youngest of nine, Virginia’s reputation as a Stoeltzing preceded her through school. This was especially true when she started at Central High in Kansas City, and she took great pride in recounting how everyone knew her as the little sister of star football players the “Stoeltzing Boys.”
As a young woman, Virginia worked with her sister Clara in downtown Kansas City for the John Taylor Dry Goods Company and later the Macy’s department store. She treasured this time in her life and told story after story about the wonderful people she worked with during her time in the millinery, gift wrapping and mail order departments.
In early 1957, Virginia’s niece and nephew introduced her to the love of her life, Everett Beckmann from Wellington, Mo. The couple was engaged a month later on Valentine’s Day 1957 and married on May 30, 1957. Everett and Virginia built an active life together and enjoyed traveling to visit family, playing games, gardening, making Christmas candy and babysitting the generations of kids who referred to them lovingly as Uncle Everett and Aunt Ginna. The couple had just celebrated 53 years of marriage when Everett passed away in July of 2010.
Virginia will be remembered as a youthful, patient, kind and endlessly loving woman who treasured, and took excellent care of, her enormous extended family.
She was preceded in death by her husband and parents as well as her eight siblings, Martha Reep, Helen Iwig, August Stoeltzing, Clara Colt, Stanley Stoeltzing, Manual Stoeltzing, Homer Stoeltzing and Leonard Stoeltzing.
Virginia is survived by an extensive, adoring family and many close friends.