Virginia Alice (Plath) Pines
Virginia Alice (Plath) Pines born at home October 16, 1921 in Rogers City to the late Emil and Clara (Pankowski) Plath. Formerly of Jackson and East Lansing, passed away in her sleep at Silver Maples Assisted Living in Chelsea, Wednesday, April 17, 2019, at the age of 97. She was a 50-year survivor of bilateral breast cancer.
She attended St. Ignatius Catholic School, and graduated from Rogers City High School in 1938 and the Henry Ford School of Nursing in 1945. A member of the Army Nurse Corp until fall 1946, she served in an amputee ward at Percy Jones Hospital in Battle Creek, an infectious disease ward in New York City, as well as onboard an Army ship transporting British war brides to the United States.
Making use of the GI Bill of Rights to earn a Bachelor of Public Health degree from Wayne State University, she was a visiting nurse for the Wayne County Public Health Department. She married high school classmate Bud I. Pines in 1950, entering into a mutual admiration partnership that thrived until his death in 1993. After her children were in school, she started an 18-year career teaching in the practical nursing program at Jackson Junior College. As a nursing instructor, she held her students to a high standard so they would become safe, professional nurses who would always put their patients first.
She loved assisting her husband in his home-improvement projects; he made the sawdust and she used the broom. She would pack up the travel trailer, three kids, and meet him whenever he was working out of town during the summer. She could park that trailer as if she’d been to truck driving school. Having many fond memories of growing up in Rogers City, Hoeft State Park was a favorite destination.
After retirement and until Bud’s death, they spent winters in McAllen, Texas, where Alice was Bud’s roadie while he played keyboard in a dance band. She never tired of listening to him play the piano.
Seeking adventure, as a widow she walked the Great Wall of China, snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef, and rode an elephant in Thailand. She never stopped learning. She was a continuous participant in the original Nurses’ Health Study started in 1976. She was a supporter of women’s reproductive rights and a voracious reader. She had an opinion on just about everything and was not afraid to share it.
Growing up, she worked in her father’s store, what is now Plath’s Meats. She was proud of being a Plath and of the family business her father started in 1913, her brother Moe expanded, and the way Moe’s sons Jeff, Tim, James, John, and Mark, all played a role—both big and small—in making the business what it is today. She was very proud of her nephews and of how hard they worked to produce quality product under the Plath name. One of the things she lamented about being in assisted living was the inability to get a decent pork sausage in the dining room. If it wasn’t her dad’s sausage recipe, it was tasteless. She was a sausage maker’s daughter to the end.
She loved her children and adored her grandchildren and
Cremation has taken place and a family memorial celebration will take place this summer in Rogers City. Memorial contributions may be made to the charity of friend’s choice.