Virginia Raymond Ott, a resident of Terwilliger Plaza, died on Saturday, March 12, 2011, at the age of 98. She was born in Wilmington, Delaware on August 21, 1912, the youngest of seven children of Colonel and Mrs. Robert Rossiter Raymond. Virginia was predeceased by her husband of 67 years, Colonel Chester W. Ott.

Born into an Army family that now boasts seven generations of West Point graduates, and then marrying a West Pointer, Virginia had a fascinating life of travel and adventure, living all over the world. When her father retired from the Army, the family moved to Cambridge, NY, where Virginia graduated from Cambridge High School as valedictorian of her class. She attended Skidmore College for one year, prior to her marriage at the age of 19. (In later years, she graduated from Multnomah College as a Certified Medical Secretary.)

After Colonel Ott’s retirement in 1945, the family moved to Portland, having chosen it as the ideal place in which to live and raise their three children for the next 17 years. The Otts also lived in Munich, Germany, Salem, OR, and Springfield, MA, but they returned twice to live in Portland in intervening years, and again, when Virginia’s husband died in 1999, she chose to return to Portland for the duration of her life, believing it to be “the most civilized of places.”

Virginia was a longtime member of both St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral and the Parish of St. Mark. She was involved in numerous activities at Terwilliger Plaza, where she was honored as Volunteer of the Year in 2010. She was an avid traveler, reader, card player, and jigsaw puzzle worker. She also loved listening to classical music and spending time with her family and good friends, Bill Cornett, Jean Cory, Becky Short, and Beth Reid.

When asked to list some of the highlights of her long life, she expressed pride in her children and grandchildren and then said, “I have ridden to hounds at Fort Belvoir, kissed the ring of Pope Paul VI, and received communion from the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she reminisced about slogging through an alley in Munich, with a basket of laundry in her arms, and half an hour later, sitting on a couch with Princess Iliana of Romania.