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Vera Anderson McGinnis, 95, of Tacoma, WA, passed away peacefully on March 27,2020 from natural causes. Vera was born July 13, 1924 in Idaho Falls, ID to Hjalmar Anderson and Edna Westlund Anderson, the youngest of three children. Vera attended public schools in Idaho Falls and graduated from Idaho Falls High School in 1942. Her parents were proud to send their only daughter to the University of Idaho during World War ll, where she studied fashion design and home economics and graduated with a teaching degree. Vera "VA" joined Pi Beta Phi sorority where she made lifelong friends who reunioned around the country well into their eighties. Among her many college activities Vera earned a varsity letter in women's golf and it was on the U of I golf course where she met SAE Frank McGinnis, a tall & handsome GI from Washington, D.C. who became her husband when they wound up their college days. Frank held degrees in economics and forestry and moved his bride to Ashland, Kentucky to work for Fleischmans Distillery, cruising the oak forests for the perfect timber for whiskey barrels. In 1952 the McGinnis family of five moved back to Idaho to operate the Anderson family potato farm on the Snake River between Menan and Roberts. Vera never really took to farm life like her big city husband did but there were daily adventures and the addition of two more babies. The three older kids have very fond memories of their years on the farm. When Frank was offered a job with the new Atomic Energy Commission the family moved back to Idaho Falls and everyone thrived. Vera was in her element raising children, cooking, sewing, gardening, decorating, entertaining, playing golf and bridge and she excelled at all. When her oldest left for college in 1965 Vera took a job teaching Home Economics at Claire E. Gale Junior High, gained many wonderful friends and a new appreciation of her own children. Frank died in 1976 and a few years later Vera moved to Portland, Oregon to marry her high school friend, Charles Holm. She fell in love with the Oregon coast where she lived for many years while spending winters in Desert Hot Springs, CA. Vera traveled extensively in her later years and loved the times when all her kids and grandkids Congregated at the beach house. Although she spent the past forty years away from Idaho her spirit never really left. Family and friends alike would agree that she was a kind woman who believed in treating people fairly. Vera was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers Carl Anderson and Earl Anderson, her husbands Frank McGinnis and Charles Holm. She is survived by all five children: Carly (Bob) Klein of Strafford, VT; Pat McGinnis (David Voss) of Hailey, ID; Tom McGinnis of Custer, SD; Dan McGinnis (Pam McPartland) of Tacoma, WA; Kathy McGinnis (Alec Fisken) of Seattle, WA; nine grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. Her ashes will be layed to rest next to Frank and the Andersons in Rose Hill Cemetery in Idaho Falls.
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