Virginia Winter

Virginia M. Winter was born December 12, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, to Lithuanian immigrants Joseph and Antonia (Keturakis) Swort. She was the youngest of three children. Her father worked as a Pullman rail car mechanic, and her mother as a midwife. She was very close to both her brother Edmund and sister Aldonna. Times were tough for the family growing up in the depression era, but Virginia benefited from her older brother's encouragement of an appreciation of books, music, and theater. She found an escape from the hardships of the depression through reading, which became her passion for the rest of her life. Her other interests included watching ballet and listening to classical music (as an usher, her brother would often sneak her into the theater and they would watch performances sitting in the aisle).

In Chicago, she met Army private Norbert A. Winter of Detroit, and after his discharge, they were wed in 1948. They settled in Detroit, where she worked as a secretary for the Parke-Davis Corporation before assuming the role of mother and homemaker.

While raising the children in the 1950's and 60's, an era of cocktails and entertaining, she developed an interest in, and real talent for, gourmet-style cooking, including French cooking, for which her family was forever grateful!

Virginia and Norbert retired to Guadalajara, Mexico in the mid-1970s. They traveled extensively within Mexico and Central America during that time, eventually returning to establish a snowbird lifestyle between a north woods cabin in Canada and a small retreat in Texas. Although the cabin-in-the-woods had no electricity, telephone, or running water, she accommodated the situation with grace, and came to enjoy the wildlife, fall colors, new friends, and peace and quiet, with a decent library only a 20-minute drive away.

Following Norbert's death in 1999, Virginia split time between her children's homes until, in 2004, she secured an independent senior apartment. As advancing age slowed her down physically, she never complained and accepted her aches and pains from aging with grace, and she always had a smile and a kind word for everyone. She was a loving wife and mother and always her children's biggest cheerleader.

After dealing with several health issues, she died peacefully at Wyoming Medical Center on February 12, 2013, with family at her side.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Norbert; her sister Aldonna Kavanaugh; and her brother Edmund Swort. She is survived by daughter Suzanne Winter-Austin of Virginia; son Eric Winter, his wife Rosanna, grandson Troy, and great grandson Gabriel of Texas; son Gary Winter and his wife Barbara Ann of Wyoming; daughter Valerie Davis, her husband Wilmer, and grandson Wilmer of Wyoming; and many relatives in Illinois and Connecticut.

Virginia's ashes will be laid to rest with her husband at Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. Memorials may be sent to the Natrona County Public Library Foundation, 307 E 2nd St., Casper 82601, or to your favorite library.