Virginia Couse Leavitt

Virginia Couse Leavitt Virginia Couse Leavitt passed on November 26 at the age of 92. Virginia was the granddaughter of the Taos painter and founding member of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA), E. I. Couse. She co-founded The Couse Foundation to preserve the Couse house and studio, as well as the studios of Couse's neighbor, friend, and fellow TSA painter, Joseph Henry Sharp.

Virginia was born in Raton, New Mexico on May 22, 1932. At the time, her father and mother, Kibbey Whitman Couse and Lucille Wrenn, felt that Raton was better equipped than Taos to ensure the safety of mother and child. Virginia spent the first years of her life in the Couse house on Kit Carson Road. Under the care of her aunt, Lucille's sister Chesta Wrenn, she subsequently grew up between La Jolla, California, and Taos. She received her BA from Principia College and her MA in Art History from the University of Arizona. She was married to Ernest E. Leavitt, who trained as an archaeologist and retired as Director of Public Programs at the Arizona State Museum. They had two children, Dustin and Julia. They lived most of their adult lives in Tucson, dividing each year since the late 1980s between Tucson and Taos.

The Couse-Sharp Historic Site and The Couse Foundation became Virginia's life work when upon her father's death she opened the family home to discover that it, along with its contents, had been left virtually undisturbed since her grandfather's time. Together with her husband, she began the laborious task of maintaining the old house and probing its contents, which would become the heart of a world-class archive now housed in the Lunder Research Center on the Couse-Sharp campus.

In the early days "Ginnie" and "Ernie" spent their six months of each year in Taos living out of the back of a blue Chevy van parked in the Couse garage, strictly adhering to a self-imposed rule that the house should be preserved in its found condition. Following Ernie's death in 2015, Ginnie moved back to Taos full time, residing in the house where she had begun her life. Ginnie fully reintegrated into the community, where she is well-known and much loved. She was tirelessly generous, giving anyone who came to the front door a tour of the house. Indeed, it was just such generosity that resulted in people with extensive professional experience, who had shown up on her doorstep, returning her generosity by becoming co-founders and founding builders of The Couse Foundation. The many people who over the years responded to her passion and kindness became both partners in her project and her most cherished friends.

Virginia passed peacefully, surrounded by her remaining immediate family. She is survived by her son, Dustin Leavitt, her daughter, Julia Buvik, her granddaughter Jessica Stazenski, and her great-granddaughters, Adalynn and Madison. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Couse-Sharp Historic Site at couse-sharp.org/donate as Ginnie would have wished.