LUDMILA JOLLIE

JOLLIE, Ludmila, peacefully embraced her Maker on November 24, 2009. Born to Konstantin and Penka Georgiev in Sofia Bulgaria, Ludmila grew up in a family that valued learning and laughter. Raised with a governess and other servants, she spoke German, English, Russian, and her native Bulgarian by the time she started high school. Independent, fearless, and inquisitive, as a young child she was picking wildflowers with her friends in the Vitosha Mountains of Bulgaria when King Boris and his retinue passed on horseback to his hunting lodge. While the other children bowed, Ludmila ran to the King and presented her bouquet, to his laughter and appreciation. These traits served her well as her family was broken up by the Second World War. Fleeing through Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Germany with her mother and younger brother, the 18-year-old Ludmila obtained work as a translator for the U.S. Army, thanks to her knowledge of German, Russian, and English. She helped reopen Heidelberg University and became its youngest female graduate in 1945 with a Master of Science in Microbiology. Sponsored by the American general in charge of postwar Germany's university system, Ludmila, her mother Penka and brother Stephen were processed through Ellis Island in 1948. She worked as a Research Assistant at Lehigh University, where she met her future husband, Bill Jollie. They married in 1951. In 1953, they had their first child, William; Bill was accepted to Harvard Medical School, and drafted to the Korean War. The Jollies spent two years in Utah doing classified research for the U.S. Army. Discharged in 1955, they moved to Massachusetts, pausing at Bill's family home in New Jersey to have their second child, Michael. Bill completed medical school at Harvard, and went on to a successful career in Anatomy, becoming Chairman at the Medical College of Virginia at Richmond in 1969. Ludmila participated in his research while raising two children and serving on the PTA, at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, La. and St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Richmond, Va. While she ceased her scientific work in 1967, she continued to support her husband's career in many ways, functioning as the travel agent and social planner for the American Association of Anatomy in their domestic meetings, and as tour organizer and translator for their international scientific conferences. The Jollies retired from the Medical College of Virginia in 1993 and moved to Madison to be closer to family in 2005. Ludmila loved a good party. She appreciated the quick witted social banter of accomplished scientists, musicians, and theologians, and would be found at the center of the largest crowd with the loudest laughter. As the Chairman's wife at the Medical College of Virginia, she took a special interest in the foreign medical students, assisting them in finding housing, in negotiating the regulations and customs of American society, and, if they were single, ceaselessly match making! She wanted others to share the success, love and freedom that she had discovered in the United States, and was a ceaseless advocate of the country that had saved her family and adopted her. Ludmila is survived by her beloved husband and constant companion, Bill of Madison, Wis.; brother and sister-in-law, Stephen and Georgia Georgiev in Winchester, Mass.; son and daughter-in-law, William Jollie, Joan Ouellette; and grandson, Sam of Madison, Wis.; and son, Michael Jollie of Seattle, Wash. Leccanosh y divishdonne Luditcha.




This obituary was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.