Memorable Manitobans: Virginia Gingerick Berry (1915-2003)

Scholar.

Born in the United States in 1915, she acquired MA and PhD degrees in Medieval Studies at the University of Chicago. In 1943, she moved to Winnipeg on her marriage to Edmund Grindlay Berry of the Classics Department at the University of Manitoba. She taught at St. John’s College from 1943 to 1944.

She was active as a board member and as a member of the women’s committee of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. As guest curator of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, she wrote two book-length exhibition catalogues. In 2003, she completed a manuscript on the role of women in Manitoba art. She was a long-time member of the Manitoba Historical Society, from which she received a Margaret McWilliams award in 1984 for her institutional history A Boundless Horizon: The Winnipeg Art Gallery.

In recognition of her work in the arts community, she received a City of Winnipeg Community Service Award (1975), was inducted into the Order of Canada (1986), and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Winnipeg (1987).

She and her husband retired to Victoria, British Columbia and she died there on 22 March 2003.

Her articles for the Manitoba Historical Society:

Review: Lynne Sussman, Spode/Copeland Transfer-Printed Patterns Found at 20 Hudson's Bay Company Sites
Manitoba History, Number 2, 1981

Sources:

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 29 March 2003.

“They will never be forgotten,” Winnipeg Free Press, 31 December 2003, pages A6-7.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 1 September 2024

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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