HELEN VIRGINIA DAVIS CALKINS, beloved wife, mother and grandmother, died July 13, 2007, in Houston, Texas. Virginia was preceded in death by Jack Michie Calkins, her husband of 61 years, who died March 15 of this year. Virginia was born to Melvin and Macy Davis on September 25, 1926, on her maternal grandfather's ranch near Wellington, Texas. She graduated from Childress High School in Childress, Texas, and attended Texas State College for Women in Denton, majoring in costume design and fashion illustration. Virginia and Jack married in Childress on June 23, 1945, while Jack was en route to his last U.S. Army Air Corps post during World War II. Virginia worked at a variety of secretarial jobs, before becoming a full-time homemaker upon the birth of her sons. Jack and Virginia lived most of their lives in Houston, but they relocated in 1969 to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where Virginia indulged her passion for Colonial antiques and genealogical research. In 1978, the family returned to Houston. Virginia was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and the Philadelphia Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and she was a founder of the Afton Village Women's Club in Houston. She taught classes in decorative painting, needlework and genealogy. An accomplished cook, seamstress and gardener, Virginia loved reading, music, entertaining, and playing games with her grandchildren. She was a fifth-generation Methodist, an ardent supporter of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band, and loving owner to a succession of 16 dogs, almost all terriers. Virginia is survived by her two sons: Jack Lee Calkins and wife, Christine Banks Calkins, and Charles Bruce Calkins and wife, Laurel Brubaker Calkins, all of Houston; grandchildren, Keri Lee Calkins, Kyle Clifton Calkins, William Davis Calkins, Christopher Scott Calkins and Benjamin Matthew Calkins; and siblings James M. Davis, of Gainsville, Texas, and Patricia Davis Buzzell, of Amarillo, Texas.