Virginia Jarboe

Virginia Helen Jarboe, 76, passed away at home in Kansas City, Mo., on February 28, 2007. Born and raised in Parsons, Kansas, Virginia went on to become a nationally recognized artist, with paintings hanging in galleries in Winston-Salem, N.C., Cincinnati, Ohio, Little Rock, Ark., Houston, Texas, and Shreveport, La. Her interest in and love of art began at a young age. As a girl, she took drawing lessons on weekends and studied books on different masters. After moving to Tulsa, Okla., in the 60s, Virginia began teaching tole painting in her garage to put her son through college. Her talents grew as she studied with a number of well known American oil painters, and she became focused on the impressionistic style of painting. She taught oil painting in her home and some of her students went on to become recognized artists that list Virginia in their own biographies. Combining her second love, traveling, with her passion for painting, Virginia attended and held workshops across the United States (Taos, N.M., Eureka Springs, Ark., and the east coast from Maine to the Carolinas), and took students each year to Holland to paint on location. She also painted on location in Ireland, Greece, and Mexico. Her work and her approach to painting were the subject of articles in the American Artist magazine. Virginia won many honors for her work, including the Gold Medal for oil at the Chantauqua, New York Show. Virginia was preceded in death by her mother, Helen Rodecker, her father, William Rodecker, and her sister, Catherine Rodecker. She was living with her son (and only child) David and her daughter-in-law, Elaine in Kansas City, Mo., when God called her to his workshop to paint the heavens. Her passing leaves a void that will never be filled. Virginia’s ashes will be interred in the Garden of the Resurrection at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 4200 S. Atlanta Place, Tulsa, Oklahoma, at 2 p.m., on Saturday, March 10, 2007.