Virginia Chapman Lockwood

Virginia Chapman Lockwood, 100
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Virginia Chapman Lockwood - teacher, poet, and Portland native - died peacefully at her home in Princeton N.J. on March 12th, 2011. She had celebrated her 100th birthday on Sept. 15, 2010, an occasion which included receipt of a letter of birthday greetings from President and Mrs. Barack Obama.
Virginia was born in Portland, the daughter of Philip F. Chapman, a prominent local lawyer and banker, and Gladys Doten Chapman, a leading figure in Maine's early women's suffrage movement. While she missed seeing Halley's Comet in 1910 by six months, she did see it in 1986. She attended Waynflete School class of 1927, playing both basketball and leading roles in dramatic productions and at the time of her death was the school's oldest living graduate. Following graduation from Wellesley College in 1931 where she was Freshman Class President, Student Government President, and one of its last surviving members, she returned to Portland to teach at Waynflete School. During that time she met and subsequently married William Lockwood, a young economics instructor at Bowdoin College. The couple subsequently moved to New York City where she began what was to become a lifelong dedication to teaching children in the primary grades, starting with her first job at the Dalton School.
Virginia Chapman Lockwood
After the war, when her husband joined the faculty of Princeton University, she resumed teaching third and fourth grades first at Miss Fine's School of Princeton and later at Princeton Day School. Following her husband's death in 1978, she became an active docent at the Princeton University Art Museum and began writing poetry with a passion. Throughout her years in Princeton she continued to return to Maine every summer to spend time in the family home on Casco Bay. She was a regular at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast Writers' Conference well into her 90's.
A niece remembers her as a 'regal and vibrant lady who was interested in a myriad of things, a wonderful conversationalist and a devoted motherÉ she found such joy in the perfect horseshoe crab, a seagull feather or a tiny colorful weed. I think she opened all of our eyes to the beauty of natureÉ..'
She is survived by her two sons, William Lockwood, Jr. of Princeton, N.J. and Stephen Lockwood of Essex Md., her daughter Dr. Julia Lockwood of South Freeport; and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements will be private.
Contributions in her memory can be made to:
The poetry cooperative
U.S.1 Worksheets
c/o Mimi Danson
P.O Box 127
Kingston, N.J. 08528