LAKEVILLE — Virginia A. Darden, née Appleton, beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and Lakeville resident, passed peacefully in her sleep on Oct. 25, 2024. She was 104.
During a blizzard, with the doctor arriving by sleigh, Virginia was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, on Feb. 10, 1920, to Chester F. Appleton, a contractor for the Austin company, and Ann Appleton, née Powers, a businesswoman and fur buyer. Virginia grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended University of Michigan.
At University of Michigan, Virginia was active in many honors’ societies, and joined the Pi Phi sorority, of which she remained an active alumna throughout her life. She graduated in 1942 with a B.A. in Liberal Arts, with an emphasis on childhood education. With WWII raging, Virginia moved to Niagara Falls, New York, where her parents resided and began a career in teaching. She founded and managed three different child care centers, supervising dozens of assistants who oversaw children ranging in age from 19 months to 14 years, whose mothers were working in aircraft and armament productions while their fathers were overseas in the war. Once the war ended, she married her college sweetheart, Robert H. Darden (Bob) whom she met in her freshman year on a geology field trip, and dated sporadically until their engagement. The two were married Nov. 10, 1945, in Niagara Falls, and were married for 75 years until 2021, when he predeceased her.
Throughout their early years, as Bob’s career grew from a private attorney and attorney for the Federal Small Business Administration, and eventually, to its Regional Counsel for the West Coast and Pacific Islands, the Dardens moved from Fort Collins and Denver, Colorado, to Washington D.C., to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to San Francisco, California.
Their family also grew; they added four children Dave, Tom, Anne and Margaret, and in each location, Virginia played an active role in their schools, and was part of the choir at Our Lady of Fatima in Albuquerque, in addition to founding two sorority houses at Colorado State University and at the University of New Mexico, and volunteering at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Albuquerque, where she edited, and wrote a column for the hospital newsletter. She was an avid reader and played piano throughout her life, well into her nineties.
In 1994 she and Bob moved for the last time, following Bob’s retirement, to Lakeville to be near to their daughter, Anne Richardson and their grandson Barrie Richardson. In Lakeville they found a welcoming community, enrolled in music appreciation classes at Taconic Learning Center, exercised at Hotchkiss indoor track, and were active at St. Mary’s Church in the choir, with Virginia volunteering for the food pantry at Owl’s Kitchen. They continued to travel abroad and continentally, even driving from Lakeville to San Diego at the age of 90.
In addition to her husband and parents, she is predeceased by her beloved son David, her brother Jack Appleton, his wife Dorothy, and her nephew Robert Appleton. She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law Thomas and Rebecca Darden, her daughter Anne Richardson and Howard Chico Aller, her daughter, and son-in-law, Margaret and Steven Garber, three grandchildren, Madeleine Garber and her husband Randy Thurber, Barrie Richardson, and Kristina Darden, two great-grandchildren, Ruth and Hendricks Thurber, her nephew and his wife, Bruce and Julie Appleton, and a grandniece and several grand nephews.
A funeral mass will be held at St. Mary’s Church in Lakeville on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of Newkirk Palmer Funeral Home, Canaan. In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions can be sent to American Red Cross.
