Virginia Pink Julian was born in Leesburg, Texas, July 18, 1922, to William H. and Dixie Shelby Julian. She grew up in Leesburg, Camp County, Texas.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, February 3rd at 2 P.M. at Fry-Gibbs Funeral Home in Paris, Texas. Interment will follow at Evergreen Cemetery.
She graduated from Texas State College for Women (now Texas Women’s University) in Denton, Texas. After three years of public-school teaching in Texas (Olney, East Mountain, and Leesburg), she earned a Masters degree in Religious Education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. She was then employed as assistant to the pastor at First Baptist Church in Bonham, Texas, where she met William Lyle Dorries. They were married on December 21st, 1947.
They moved to College Station, Texas in 1950 where her husband, Bill, earned his Masters and Ph.D. degrees at Texas A&M University. Auburn University was Bill’s first teaching job, and after a year he took a job at his alma mater, East Texas State University (now Texas A&M, Commerce), where he served on the faculty for 30 years. Virginia raised her two children there and served part-time as the pastor’s assistant. Both Virginia and Bill were long-time Sunday School teachers at First Baptist Church in Commerce. They spent their last retirement years in Florida.
She is preceded in death by her husband, her parents, a brother William Julian, grandson Andrew Dorries and nephew Charles Julian.
Surviving is son David Dorries (and Maryalice), daughter Martha (and Clark) Whitten, sister Edith King, sister-in-law Helen Julian, grandsons Paul, Davis and John Dorries, granddaughters Wendy (and Joey) Chase, Abby (and Heath) Ritenour, and great-grandchildren Clark and Luke Chase and John and Shelby Ritenour. Nieces Julianne (and John) Hodges and Cindy Julian. Nephews Jim Bob (and Paula) King, Keith (and Gwen) Julian and Paul (and Cindy) Julian.
