Virginia Stoddard Peery

Age 87, of East Lansing and Harbor Springs, Michigan, passed away peacefully December 22, 2016, in Petoskey, Michigan. She was born September 8, 1929, to Jennie Creer Stoddard and Howard James Stoddard. She was very proud of her Mormon ancestry and had many loving friends. Virginia married Paul Davis Peery in the Salt Lake Temple (they later divorced). Virginia rose to the challenge of raising three children by herself in the 1960’s when that was much less common.

She attended and graduated in one of the early years of Kingswood (now Cranbrook), where she boarded her last two years of high school. She cherished the lifelong friends she made there. She was a proud University of Michigan graduate and while a Pi Phi there, she also collected many more lifelong friends. Living in East Lansing most of the year, she always had the two state schools bumper stickers on her car.

She loved colorful flowers, art, reading and traveling. During the 1980’s, while her children were in college she used to live for months in London every year. She was known for kind notes and cards that she sent constantly and so it is fitting that she never adapted to email or texting.

Besides many family members, including two surviving brothers, Charles and Stanford (Bud) and many nieces and nephews who she cared a great deal for and loved, she had friends that were family: Mary, Dottie, Helen, Amy, Topsy, Barbara, Rosey, Polly, Donna, Doris and others, some who have passed before her. Her brother Howard P. Stoddard preceded her in death.

Her children are Jennifer Jensen, of Bountiful, Utah, and her husband Gordon, who gave her four grandchildren, James Peery of Harbor Springs, who gave her three grandchildren and Paul Peery of Sacramento, CA.

She was very close to the “Western” side of the family, the Creers, out in Salt Lake City. She enjoyed her visits there, especially the visits she had as a child when they would take the train to see her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She was a past member of the Lansing Jr. League, Lansing Symphony Guild, Lansing Women’s Club, Sparrow Hospital Guild and her neighborhood bookclub.

Most recently, Virginia had been living at Perry Farm Village in Harbor Springs where she was cared for beautifully. The family would also like to thank the kind people at Hiland Cottage Hospice in Petoskey.

All friends and family are invited to attend Virginia’s funeral which will be Wednesday, January 4, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, located at 431 East Saginaw in East Lansing. A viewing for friends and family will be held the same day and location (LDS Church) at 10:00am immediately before the service. Estes-Leadley Greater Lansing Chapel is the funeral home in charge of arrangements.