Virginia Faye Leath Kimbro

1924 - 2007

Virginia Faye Leath Kimbro, 82, died Monday, June 25, 2007, in Little Rock, Ark.

Memorial service: 11:30 a.m. Friday in Greenwood Chapel.

Memorials: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, 5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250, Dallas, Texas 75244, or a charity of choice.

Virginia Faye Leath Kimbro was born Sept. 23, 1924, the daughter of Fonza Preston Leath and Era Leta Clamp Leath. She spent most of her youth in Judson, near Longview. Virginia attended Kilgore Junior College in Kilgore, where she was one of the first Kilgore Rangerettes, and received her bachelor's degree in business administration from North Texas State University in Denton in 1945.

She married John Keith Kimbro, who passed away in 1991, on July 15, 1944. She spent most of her adult life in Fort Worth, where she was a longtime member of Ridglea United Methodist Church. Recently she moved to Benton, Ark., and then to Parkway Village Retirement Community in Little Rock in 2004, where her new friends gave her much comfort and support.

Virginia, a true bibliophile, read extensively and her tastes were wide-ranging: from the philosophical works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to the satire of Mollie Ivins, to the humor of Bill Bryson. She was an intellectual without pretense.

Perhaps Virginia's most notable attribute was her ready smile, which lit up her face and brought return smiles from those around her -- a smile that surfaced even in the midst of increasingly difficult health problems.

The family gives special thanks to her primary caregivers, Helen Harris and Cecilia Adams.

Her children, family and friends will always be grateful for her legacy of grace, dignity, humor and love generously given, and she will live in their hearts and minds forever.

Virginia was preceded in death by her sister, Georgia Nelwyn Keller.

Survivors: Daughter, Georgia Harris and her husband, Eugene "Kayo" of Little Rock, Ark.; son, Tom Kimbro and his wife, Sandy, of Cleburne; grandchildren, Adrienne Elrod of Washington, D.C., Jason Kimbro of Cleburne and Erin Kimbro of Grandview; and great-grandchild, Shane Ebarb of Grandview. She was especially close to her nieces, Paula Nichols of Benton, Ark., and Linda Deloney of Little Rock, Ark.