Virginia Lillian Bichmiller — Ginny to her family — was born on August 28, 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the only daughter of Willard Frank Bichmiller and Lillian Sina Lipps.⁴ On her father's side the surname was new to America: her great-grandfather Frank Bichmiller had crossed the Atlantic from Austria as a baby in the 1850s, and the family's Bichmiller story lives in its own chapter. On her mother's side the Lipps line ran three generations deep in Cincinnati — her maternal great-grandfather John Frederick Lipps was born there in September 1862 — and the Weld branch upstream of him traced to Alsace Lorraine.⁸

Her Cincinnati childhood was a tour of the Clifton neighborhoods. The addresses Skip preserved, in order: State Street, then East and West University in Clifton, then Rohs Street, then a stretch near Flora and Ada, then Montana. Six addresses in the same Cincinnati district. In 1938, when Virginia was thirteen, the family moved north to DeWitt Street in Greenhills, Ohio — the planned-community suburb just past the city line.⁸ The GEDCOM corroborates Greenhills residences for her in 1935, 1940, and 1942.⁴

Greenhills High School appears in the 1942 Pioneer yearbook on page 15, in the Juniors section — three rows of teenagers in matching dark sweaters and white blouses, photographed against the side of the school building. Virginia, sixteen, stands in the second row alongside teacher Phyllis Hreland and her classmates Barbara Bishopric, Charlotte Hershberger, Mary Beck, and Florence Newkirk. Her own name appears in the caption beneath: Virginia Bichmiller.⁷

Twenty-nine pages later, on page 44, the same yearbook prints the graduating Class of 1942's "Last Will and Testament," dated June 3, 1942. The seniors run through their bequests one by one — Jim Corbett leaves his shyness; Jimmy Cutter leaves his sunny disposition; Bill Dinkelacker leaves his ability to hold his temper. Halfway down the page comes the line that would set the moment in print: "Patty Long leaves the writing of next year's will to Virginia Bichmiller."⁷ The bequest was prophetic. Virginia would have written the 1943 class will as a senior the following year.

She graduated from Greenhills High School in 1943 — the only school named in her obituary.²

Virginia and Jack Ralph Thompson were married in the mid-1940s. The earliest dated trace of their union on this site is the Cincinnati newspaper clipping — artifact `autumn-town` — covering Jack's fire-crippled return to San Francisco aboard the gunboat PGM-30 in early 1946. The article identifies "Mrs. Virginia Thompson, 20, 139 Farragut Road, Greenhills" as having just returned from a visit to her husband in California when the call came that the ship was back ashore. She was twenty, newly married, and living a few blocks from where she had grown up — after the wedding she had moved across town from DeWitt to Farragut Road, an internal Greenhills shift Skip's notes confirm.^3,8

In early 1947 Virginia and Jack moved to 1805 East Drive, Richmond, Indiana, where Jack worked for Eli Lilly & Company as a pharmacist.^2,8 They were in Richmond for three years.

In June 1950, Jack purchased the Berman Drug Store at the corner of Union and Market Streets in Liberty, Indiana, and renamed it Jack Thompson Pharmacy.² Virginia and Jack — and by then their first children — moved to Liberty that summer. They would live there for eighteen years. In Liberty, Virginia raised four children: Kathie (later Matney), Vanessa (later Hardin), Jack R Thompson (Benjamin Thompson's father; in childhood his family called him "Skip," a nickname he dropped in college and has not used since), and Paul Thompson.^2,4

In Liberty, Virginia also became a civic pioneer: the first woman ever elected to the Liberty Town Council, twice. Her obituary records this distinction plainly: "was the first woman elected to the Liberty Town Council twice."²

In 1968 — the year after Jack sold the pharmacy — Virginia and the family relocated to New Castle, Indiana.² She would live there the remaining 55 years of her life. In New Castle she built a 35-year retail career at Sears and J.C. Penney.² She was, the obituary records, "a devoted mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She loved socializing with her friends and was well known for her tremendously sharp wit."²

In 1982, Virginia married Victor Howell in New Castle.² The relationship of Victor Howell to her children was step, not biological. Family records preserve the two specific New Castle addresses Virginia and Victor lived at during their marriage: 930 S 14th St, beginning November 1, 1982 — immediately after the wedding — and 1121 Forest Dr, beginning July 1, 1987, five years into the marriage.⁵ Victor predeceased Virginia in 2005.² She lived eighteen more years after his death.

At her 97th birthday party, in August 2022 — eight months before she died — almost every member of her family attended. The obituary records the moment: "she looked out at the large number in the room and said, 'This is all my fault.'"²

Virginia died April 8, 2023 at Henry Community Health in New Castle, Indiana, after a brief illness. She was 97. End-of-life care had been provided at Addison Place.² She was survived by all four of her children — Kathie Matney (Richard) of Connersville, Vanessa Hardin (Marc) of Greens Fork, Jack R Thompson (Konnie) of Denver, and Paul Thompson of Indianapolis — and by nine grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren.²

Visitation and funeral service were held at Hinsey-Brown Service, 3406 S. Memorial Drive, New Castle, on April 17, 2023. Memorial contributions were directed to the Henry County Humane Society and the Union County Schools Fund in Liberty — uniting the two Indiana towns that had marked her adult life.²