Staff Writer
ASHLAND, Maine – Virginia Pinkham is being remembered as a class act who put the needs of others before her own.
Pinkham, wife of the late Tom Pinkham, worked tirelessly to ensure that Aroostook County residents had the health care they needed in the communities they lived. She passed away April 10 in Bremerton, Wash.
While working as a visiting nurse for Standard Oil in New Jersey, she met her future husband who was visiting his cousin. They married the following year while Tom was serving in the U.S. Air Force. During the war years, Pinkham worked as a nurse in her hometown of Elizabeth, N.J. and at Gould Memorial Hospital in Presque Isle as a part-time private duty nurse.
Following the war and Tom’s discharge from the military, the Pinkhams moved to Fort Kent where Tom joined his family in logging. Virginia worked as an office nurse in Fort Kent and as a general duty nurse at Eagle Lake Hospital.
Longtime friend Helen McLennan first met “Ginny” through her husband’s work.
“Ginny was in Fort Kent and married Tom Pinkham, and my husband, Dick, and Tom were good friends,” said McLennan. “My husband eventually went to work for Tom. He drove a truck. That’s how I first met Ginny.
“We went on trips together. We went to New York one year. We also used to do a lot of fishing and reeled in some big ones,” she said. “I caught a 40-pound fish one time.”
McLennan described Pinkham as being a “good sport.”
“She would do anything that the crowd did. We’d go snowsledding; we didn’t do any skiing … that wasn’t her deal,” said McLennan. “She was real cool; she didn’t get excited about anything. I’ll miss the chitchat. We’d reminisce about different things … kids, going to the camps, and partridge hunting. There’s nothing that Gin couldn’t do. She was quite a gal … a good friend who was very willing to do anything for you.”
Dorothy King, who along with Pinkham were the driving forces behind Northwood Manor in Ashland, called Pinkham a “very exceptional woman.”
“She was so quiet about everything; I don’t think a lot of people realize all the things that she did because she never talked about it,” she said. “Virginia was a very humble person, and she was my best friend.
“Virginia and I were both nurses and involved in health care for a long time,” King said. “Our dream was to have a long-term care facility in Ashland. That way people wouldn’t be separated so much from their families. Children could drop in on their way to and from work to see their parents. That dream became a reality when Northwood Manor opened, and the facility continues to thrive today.”
King and Pinkham traveled a lot together attending meetings in the Bangor area.
“As it turns out, we were both nurses in New York City years ago, but we didn’t know each other. We were 10 blocks away and never met, but met here in Aroostook County,” said King. “She taught me so much. I’m not native to the area, and she taught me how to get along here. We used to do a lot of things in Fort Kent and she told me all the history of Fort Kent. I’ll miss her an awful lot.”
Lynwood “Len” McHatten of Ashland got to know Pinkham in a couple different ways.
“She was a very good friend of my mother; they worked on a lot of philanthropic things together,” he said. “I worked with her myself when we were putting together the plans for Northwood Manor. That was the brainchild of Virginia and Dorothy King. Virginia hooked me into it and I’m involved with it today.
“The best way to characterize Virginia was she was the quintessential philanthropist. There’s no question about it. She was terrific … a very soft-spoken woman, determined, not easily rattled, but could be very firm about things,” said McHatten. “I went to her church. She and her husband brought the Ashland Union Congregational Church back to life. It was in disrepair when they moved to town. Tom had his mill workers – and used his lumber – to rebuild the church. It’s a fine facility now thanks to Tom and Virginia Pinkham.”
As the guidance director at Ashland Community High School, McHatten said for many years Pinkham contributed to post-secondary education for kids by providing the Pinkham Scholarship.
“I don’t know of anybody that ever applied for a Pinkham Scholarship that got turned down,” he said. “I’ve been in guidance a long time, and I think all you had to do was apply and you were going to get money. My own two children both received money from that fund. She was very generous. People speak of her reverently. When they say her name, it’s with great reverence. She was just a great person.”
Pinkham’s efforts and financial support resulted in the opening of Northern Maine Medical Center in the St. John Valley and Aroostook Valley Health Center in Ashland, a grant for funding eight rural health centers throughout Maine, and significant expansions at The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle.
“Virginia was just a fantastic lady,” said Dave Peterson, chief executive officer at TAMC. “I worked with her off and on for over 30 years on things that – in many cases were to the benefit of TAMC – but her scope was much larger than that. My first interactions with her were about establishing a health center in Ashland in the late ‘70s. She had certainly as much to do with the success of that operation as any one individual … pulling a group together, getting decisions made, bringing a provider into town where there really had not been any continuity, and she did things in a manner that you always wish more people were proficient at.
“She could persuade people without being forceful at all. Virginia was a pillar in the community and if she wanted to, she could have pushed people around, but she never did that. People did things for Virginia because they wanted to,” he said. “She was always very politically astute, but always very likeable at the same time.”
TAMC’s Pinkham wing was named as a tribute to Virginia and her husband.
“They certainly helped us not only financially with that building project in the late 1980s, but also by encouraging other people to support it,” said Peterson, “by providing testimonials, and their leadership in a lot of different ways to make that wing a reality.”
Peterson said while his relationship with Pinkham was more professional, the line sometimes blurred.
“I remember one day when my wife and I were coming out of Burger King in Caribou and Virginia and Tom were returning from a fishing trip at their place in New Brunswick. We said ‘hello’ and chatted and Tom took us over to the back of his car, opened the trunk and gave us one of the big salmon they were bringing home,” said Peterson. “That’s the kind of people they both were.
“Virginia was a prime example of that old saying, ‘Bloom where you’re planted.’ Virginia wasn’t from here but she was definitely part of here,” he said. “She left a legacy in Aroostook County and she will be truly missed. Virginia was a lady who was loved by all, admired and respected and just one of a kind.”
Pinkham served on the board of directors of AVHC, Visiting Nurses of Aroostook, TAMC Health Group, and Husson College. She had also been the recipient of Women of Aroostook recognition and a Ph.D. for community service from Husson College. In 1994, Pinkham received the Paul Harris Fellow from the Ashland Rotary Club. On May 10, 2008, the University of Maine System’s Board of Trustees conferred an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree upon Pinkham at the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s 126th commencement ceremony.
In a press statement released yesterday, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins paid tribute to Pinkham. “Virginia was a wonderful woman and a beloved member of the Ashland and Fort Kent communities. In addition to helping with her late husband’s lumber business, she made countless contributions to Aroostook County as a nurse, as administrator of Aroostook Valley Health Center and a member of The Aroostook Medical Center board, and through her volunteer service and philanthropic efforts that supported many community organizations. My deepest sympathies go out to Virginia’s family during this time. She will be greatly missed by all those whose lives she touched,” she said.
A celebration of Pinkham’s life was held Sunday at the Ashland Central School gymnasium. Her full obituary can be found in the obituary section.
