Virginia Rosemary Larsen Rowland

Virginia was born on March 10, 1935 in the farmhouse of her Danish parents, Immanuel and Edith (Hansen) Larsen, outside of Culbertson, Montana. She died in Springfield, Oregon on March 23, 2018 at the age of 83.

Her early years were spent on the farm with her sisters and brothers. She was baptized and confirmed in Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Dane Valley. She graduated from Dakota Lutheran Academy in Minot, North Dakota. Following a year at Dana College she moved to Los Angeles to live near her sister Shirley and Aunts Doris, Marie, and Marcella. As a bright and ambitious young woman, she immediately found work as a secretary. She met George Givens Rowland in a coffee shop one morning before work and later that night they had dinner in Malibu. Six weeks later they married in Las Vegas on July 16, 1955. They were married 46 years until his sudden death on November 16, 2001.

During their life together she was an excellent homemaker and enjoyed many hobbies and interests: Reading, sewing, needlepoint, entertaining friends and family, playing bridge, playing the piano and singing, playing golf, painting, skiing, family vacations to national parks, and decorating the homes they moved to for George’s job transfers in Anaheim, California; Modesto, California; Logan, Utah; Danville, California; Lincolnshire, Illinois; and retiring in Polson. She was a strong and independent woman who started her own business in the mid-1970’s, Danville Secretarial Service. Together, she and George built Partridge Hill Vineyard in Polson, 1991 - 2001. After he died, she sold the vineyard and enjoyed ten years in her condo where she loved to watch the geese on Flathead Lake.

She always fondly remembered the trip to Washington, D.C. with her parents when she was young and from that time on she had an avid interest in politics and the news. She stayed up all night watching the Vietnam POW’s return to American soil and she never missed a NASA space launch.

Virginia was very witty with a great sense of humor, a lovely hostess, and very intelligent. She was known as “Ginny” to many close friends, especially Carol Hodson and sister-in-law Carol Larsen.

She was preceded in death by her husband George and their infant children Baby Girl Rowland, 1959, Baby Boy Rowland, on May 14, 1960; Scott George Rowland, on June 6, 1961; her parents; sister Shirley Petersen; brothers Calvin Larsen and Bill Larsen; nephew Bruce Larsen; and son-in-law Rod Castro. She is survived by daughter Sheralyn Rowland Castro and son Mark Morris Rowland (both of Springfield, Oregon); brothers Fred Larsen and Dick Larsen; sister Sharon Torgerson; and numerous nieces and nephews across the country. The day before she died she said, “I’ve done everything I came to do.” Indeed, she did. We give thanks for her life and everything she gave us.

A service to inter her ashes in Lake View Cemetery in Polson, will be held in the summer.