Virginia Wells Blain

1924 - 2025

Virginia Wells Blain

July 28, 1924 - June 29, 2025

Virginia Early Wells Blain, matriarch, teacher, reader, amateur architect, and proud descendent of the Early family of Albemarle Countydied on June 29, 2025 at the age of 100. Born in Alexander City, Alabama, on July 28, 1924, she spent much of her childhood moving from city to city with her sister and parents as her father, a civil engineer, accepted commissions for major building projects and her mother, a plucky native of White Hall, Virginia, maintained the household. Upon her father's untimely death in 1939, she, her sister, and their mother answered the invitation of relatives to move to Roanoke, which became their permanent home.

She was a graduate of Jefferson High School and Randolph Macon Woman's College, where she majored in math and belonged to S.T.A.B., a secret society. To her dying day she would not reveal what words the initials represented. She was an active member of the Junior League, the Roanoke Assembly, the Modern Arts Club, Meals on Wheels, and Second Presbyterian Church, where she married Samuel Wilson Blain on December 4, 1948. After she became an empty-nester in the early 1970's, she returned to college, became certified to teach, and taught math in the Roanoke City schools for over a decade. Throughout her life she was an inveterate reader. Her home was full of books, and she kept the regional libraries busy. She was forever seeking opportunities to learn more about the world, whether through travel, reading, or listening to lectures. Her family valued her for epitomizing all that motherhood entails and for teaching her children lessons that they remembered throughout their lives: that math is fun, that promptness is a virtue, that reading is a profound pleasure, and that travel, whether just down the road or halfway across the globe, is an essential part of a life well lived. As she became increasingly debilitated in later life and depended upon a wheelchair for mobility, she clung to her friendships and her weekly bridge games, and she kept scrupulous records of pending birthdays and other special anniversaries on a large wall calendar that served as both record book of the past and map of the future. As her world shrank, she looked eagerly outward to the lives of family and friends.

She is predeceased by her husband, her parents, George Hammond Wells and Mary Barbour Powers Wells, and her sister, Margaret Hammond Wells Shackleford Genheimer Boyd. Survivors include her children, Wilson Edward Blain of Roanoke, Virginia Barbour Blain Kuertz of Cincinnati (Rick), Stuart Wells Blain of Richmond (Lynne); her nephews, William Penn Shackleford of Princess Anne, Maryland (Carolyn) and William Frederick Genheimer of Roanoke (Lynn); her grandchildren, Kevin Kuertz of Fort William, Kentucky (Nicki), Stephen Kuertz of Covington, Kentucky (Lucille), Thomas Wilson Blain of Richmond (Stephanie Chubb), Andrew Stuart Blain of Richmond (Erin Dyer), Katherine Wells Kuertz Seward of Cincinnati (Reed), Anna Tyler Kuertz Lennon of Boston, Massachusetts (Jack), and John McMann Blain of Brooklyn, New York (Abigail Glasgow); and eight great-grandchildren, Tate, Vally, Callum, and Dexter Kuertz, Teddy and George Seward and Nella and Charlie Blain and another one expected any day.

The family would like to thank the staff of Friendship North for their consistently fine attention and care. Particular gratitude goes to Damika Joseph for her unselfish and loving care of a woman who loved her so much in return. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may go to Second Presbyterian Church.

A memorial service will be scheduled for later this year.