Virginia Ann Barnes

Virginia Ann Hay Barnes passed away in Kerrville, Texas on September 6, 2023. She was 86 years young and had the mental vitality and sass of a woman in her 20s. She passed peacefully, but let it be known to all she fought until the very end. She grew up in Mercedes, Texas, and family was her everything. She had a massive extended family with whom she was very close. She was a homemaker most of her life having raised 3 boys, adopting her granddaughter, raising a second granddaughter, and finally raising her great grandson.

She loved attending the Moore family reunions from her mother’s side. All the Moore women in her family were beautiful and strong-willed, with infectious witchy cackles as a result from playfully picking on each other or reminiscing of the past while their spouses were usually quiet or soft spoken but happily content. Her husband, John Robert Barnes, was one of those as described. Virginia had eyes for no one else as he was her first and last love when he passed in 2003. She never stopped mourning her loss and promised never to love another which she honored until her death.

Virginia liked to travel but would never fly in an airplane. She loved to vacation by car to places in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Colorado where the fun wasn’t just the destination but the stops along the way. She was an avid reader of the newspaper, Women’s World magazine and Western fiction specifically Louis L’Amour. She quite possibly owned every novel and short story he ever wrote. If she wasn’t reading, she was keeping busy doing word searches, crossword puzzles, playing Solitaire or Skipbo. Not many knew of her artistic talents: she was a ceramist, photographer, seamstress, had beautiful penmanship, a flare for style, scrapbooking, and could effortlessly doodle beautiful sketches as she would talk on the phone.

She was a kind caregiver, loving wife and mother, but she was also not one to be crossed. She would call herself the Mean Old Lady of Peaking Street in a joking manner but could stare you down without blinking if she was upset with you, and yell through every family member’s full name before she got the actual person she was upset with. To disappoint her was far worse than any punishment or spanking. She loved unconditionally and treated all who entered her home as her own. She was affectionately known to friends and family as Mama, Nana, Nana Gin, Gin and Aunt Gin.

Survivors include sons, Alan Barnes and James Barnes, daughter Jennifer Barnes, granddaughter Glenda Wolfe (spouse Ben), great grandson Devin Barnes, and great granddaughter Genevieve Wolfe and fur great-grandbabies Sissy and Baron Wolfe. She was preceded in death by her husband John Robert Barnes, son John Wesley Barnes, parents Alfred and Anna Hay, brother James Russell, triplet sisters Marjorie Hay, Martha McKeon, and Margaret Woods, and fur baby Cindy.

Funeral service and burial will take place at Sunset Memorial Park and Funeral Home in San Antonio, Texas on September 15, 2023.