Virginia Letta Cole Wirtes

Devoted Sister And Aunt Will Be Sorely Missed

Virginia Letta Cole Wirtes, 76, born October 27, 1935, at Bridgeport Hospital, died January 26, at her home in Northport, Fla. She was a daughter of Letta (Bennett) and Fred William Cole of Sandy Hook and lived most of her life in Newtown.

Her sisters, Shirley Cole Ferris and husband Charles D. Ferris III of Newtown, and Dorothy Cole Earl and husband Larry M. Earl of California, survive Mrs Wirtes. She is also survived by several nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews. She was predeceased by her husband of 52 years, William A. Wirtes, as well as her brothers Fred Charles Cole, Kenneth Warren Cole, Bruce Waldo Cole, Lawrence Milton Cole, and Walter Allen Cole, and sister Louise Cole Westover .

She graduated from Newtown High School in 1953. Starting in a small factory in Sandy Hook as a teenager, she spent her career in manufacturing, mostly at Barden Corporation in Danbury, where she retired from a supervisory position.

Mr and Mrs Wirtes had no children but “adopted” their dozens of nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews, showering them with love, attention, and encouragement.

Avid campers, the Wirtes made it a lifetime quest to visit every national park and forest in the United States. She and her husband retired to Florida in 1992, to a home that abutted a nature conservancy.

A private memorial service for the family will be held on the Wirtes’ wedding anniversary, May 4, in Newtown.

The Newtown Bee        February 17, 2012