Virginia Cole Kraner, Class of 1949

Virginia Cole Kraner ’49 died July 22, 2022. Virginia known as Ginny was born March 29, 1927, in Corry, Pennsylvania to the late Emory Ray Cole ’23 and Ohla Cave Cole ’22.
Ginny grew up in West Virginia and attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio where she met her husband, James Clem “Bud” Kraner ’47. Ginny was the 1949 Otterbein Winter Queen, in student government/senate and the Tau Epsilon Mu (Talisman) sorority.
Ginny taught kindergarten at Clinton Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio during the early years of her marriage while Bud completed his MD and PhD degrees at the Ohio State University. After his graduation and several moves, Ginny and Bud settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he served as a physician with Lovelace Clinic.
A career advancement in 1977 took Ginny and Bud to Phoenix, Arizona. There she pursued a lifelong passion for art by serving as a docent with the Phoenix Art Museum for 20 years. With Bud’s retirement in 1990, they moved to Sun Lakes, Arizona where they were active in the Sun Lakes Methodist Church. Ginny and Bud celebrated 65 years of marriage in 2014. After illness took Bud later that year, Ginny moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico to be near her children.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband James Clem Kraner ’47, sister Irene Cole ’44, sister-in-law Mary Kraner Poff ’40, and Esther Scott McGee ’47.
She is survived by her four children, Susan Trumble (Thom), Sarah Allen (Terry), James Kraner and Timothy Kraner (Kristynn), two grandsons, Ken Adams (Fawn) and James Trumble (Marissa), brother Robert Cole ’60 and nephews, Keith, Dean and James Cole and God-daughter Marron Lee Nelson.