Virginia Connally celebrated with family and friends when she turned 100 this month. But even though she has spanned a century, the quality of her life supercedes the quantity of her years.
About 400 well-wishers, plus Hardin-Simmons University’s World-Famous Cowboy Band, turned out to celebrate Dr. Connally’s centennial in Abilene Dec. 8, four days after she eclipsed the century mark. We stood in line for the opportunity to hug her and to tell her how much we admire her and how blessed we feel because she has been part of our lives.
{mosimage}Virginia made history in 1940, when she became the first woman to practice medicine in Abilene. Across a lifetime of firsts, she became the first female chief of staff at Hendrick Medical Center and the first female president of the Taylor-Jones County Medical Society. She received the Texas Medical Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award this year.
She pioneered in church and Baptist life, too. She was among the first women ordained deacons at First Baptist Church in Abilene. Her passion for sharing the gospel around the globe reverberates at her alma mater, Hardin-Simmons, where she endowed a chair of missions and provided the key gift for the Connally Missions Center. HSU named her a distinguished alumna in 1973; bestowed its highest honor, the Keeter Award, in 1981; and awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1989.
Beyond her accomplishments, Virginia is a mentor and personal role model because of the way she approaches life.
When she was 94, she decided to attend the upcoming New Baptist Covenant, a multiracial reconciliation gathering to be held in the mammoth Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. So, she moved her bedroom to the second floor of her home. “I figured climbing the stairs several times a day would build up my legs, and then getting around in Atlanta would be no problem,” she explained.
Still, even at 100, Virginia always is learning. Her home brims with books. Her conversation overflows with new ideas she gleans from those books, as well as opinions on current events around the globe, plus thoughts on living a faithful Christian life in a complex and demanding world.
Practically everyone who knows Virginia has stories to tell about paying her a visit and leaving with one or more books—copies of the same ones she was reading—she gave them.
And every visit I’ve ever shared with Virginia ended with prayer, because she knows God not only gives life, but a relationship with God is what makes life worth living.
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Her energy and can-do spirit, her insatiable curiosity and quest for learning, and her vibrant relationship with the Lord keep her young at heart.
Even—or especially—now that she’s 100.
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