Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Dorothea Virginia ROOSEVELT
D. Virginia Roosevelt Armentrout, 91
By Sally A. Downey
Inquirer Staff Writer
D. Virginia Roosevelt Armentrout, 91, of Gladwyne, a community volunteer and artist, died of heart failure Sunday, June 20, at Providence-Newberg Medical Center in Newberg, Ore., where she was visiting her daughter.
Mrs. Armentrout, who was related to Theodore Roosevelt and, more distantly, to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, grew up in New York City and Oyster Bay, N.Y., and graduated from the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Conn. As a teenager in the 1930s, she accompanied her father, John Kean Roosevelt, when he traveled to Japan on business and was profoundly affected by the prewar journey, said her son Michael Roosevelt.
In 1939, she married James S. Armentrout Jr. The couple lived in Montgomery County and in 1972 purchased a 90-acre farm in Ambler. She managed the property, which also had a kennel of collies that she raised and showed, her son said.
Mrs. Armentrout was a volunteer and fund-raiser for several organizations, including the Ambler YMCA and the Germantown-Chestnut Hill Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Orchestra. For more than 40 years, she was active with Visiting Nurse Association Community Services.
She organized a fashion show and benefit lunch in 1996 for VNA featuring Paula Hian designs. Mrs. Armentrout, a Hian customer, told an Inquirer reporter that she asked the designer to do the show to introduce younger people to the services of VNA.
Mrs. Armentrout, who collected 18th-century American furniture, had a strong interest in the preservation of the area's historic houses, including Wyck in Germantown, Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park, and the Highlands in Fort Washington.
Her husband died in 1993, and five years later she sold 58 acres of her Ambler property to Whitpain Township and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association to be maintained as open space. She still lived in a home nearby and told an Inquirer reporter she was happy that the meadows and woods would be preserved instead of a development of "millions of ugly houses in my backyard."
As a young woman, Mrs. Armentrout studied at Tyler School of Art and in recent years pursued her early interest. Her decoupages were exhibited in Oyster Bay and at Waverly Heights, where she had lived since 2006.
In addition to her son Michael, she is survived by sons Alexander and Richard; a daughter, Christine Stimac; a brother; a sister; eight grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday, July 2, at Gladwyne Presbyterian Church, 1321 Beaumont Dr., Gladwyne.
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