Virginia Sturrup Fenn, obituary

Tue, 07/23/2019 - 9:00pm

Almost 100 years ago, Ginny was born in Long Island, NY to Fred E. Warmers and Tessie (Boehm) Warmers. The youngest of three children, she attended Catholic schools from the age of five to her graduation from Marymount College. The Catholic influence was so strong that she aspired to be a nun. Fortunately for her future sons, she changed her mind.

Her parents encouraged the three children to play a musical instrument at a very early age. Ginny chose the violin. She vividly remembered practicing arduously while the other neighborhood children played in the street. The crack in her instrument is testament to the frustration she sometimes felt. However, she became very accomplished and was invited to attend Julliard School of Music where she received her Masters degree. At the school her dream evolved into becoming a concert violinist. But, as she recently remarked to her son and daughter-in-law when asked why she didn’t choose her usual entrée of bacon-wrapped scallops, “things change.”

And so they did. She abandoned her quest at violin virtuosity and became a model and for her day-job worked for Sperry Gyroscope as a receptionist during the war years of the 1940s. And there she met her future husband, Albert Sturrup, Jr., a salesman for an NYC company. They soon married and spent several years travelling the country in sporty convertibles while Al called on customers.

Finally settling in Middle Haddam, CT, Al and Ginny raised two sons, Burt and Dan. Life in the small town agreed with Ginny and she settled into a life of motherhood and volunteer work with the local mental health agency. Luckily for the boys, they were not required to practice a musical instrument for hours each day. Instead, they were the children playing in the street.

Sadly, Al and Ginny divorced, and she moved to Maine in the 1970s. Not sadly, she met a wonderful man in the person of Converse Fenn and they were married in 1987 and lived on Great Pond in Rome. They had 12 very happy years together until his death in 1990.

In her later years, Ginny lived with her son Dan and daughter-in-law Jean Anne in Old Town, followed by 10 years at an assisted living facility in Bangor and her final three months at Tall Pines in Belfast.

Ginny was a woman of style and decorum. Not without a biting tongue, she had a quick wit and an easy smile. Her family and her friends will miss her terribly.

She is survived by her son Burt and his wife Kim Shelley, her son Dan and his wife Jean Anne; grandson Casey Sturrup and fiancée Alysha Ardagna, granddaughter Duska Sturrup, grandson Chad Malbon and great-grandchildren Connor, Marley, Lyla and Ryan and granddaughter Kyla Harrison and great grand-children Jacob and Jacey.

Calling hours will be Friday, July 26, from 4-6 p.m., at Riposta Funeral Home, Belfast, Maine