Virginia Lou (Carson) Peckens
July 4, 1932 – March 10, 2023
At 90 years old, Virginia Lou Peckens went to a place prepared for her in heaven after passing away at the farm that her family called home for six decades in Fowlerville, Michigan.
Raised by a courageous mother, Virginia graduated from Milford High School in 1950 and embarked on a remarkable college career at Michigan State College. She studied ag extension and received her Bachelor’s Degree from MSC where she paved the way for women for generations to come. She was the first woman on the MSC Livestock Judging Team and the MSC Meats Judging Team. Her stories of traveling the country to judging contests as the only woman were notable, but not something she set out to accomplish. She simply signed up for the animal evaluation class and wanted to learn more; breaking a path for women was the last thing on her mind. But she did, and generations of women have come behind her and excelled in this area. Yet agriculture was not her only passion, she enjoyed and excelled at singing and held recitals and even made a recording at WKAR studios.
She met the love of her life, Richard Peckens, at MSC and they married on June 22, 1957. She had her teaching certificate from Wayne State University by this time, and taught second grade for a couple of years before she began having children and then chose to be a stay-at-home mom. Together they had five children and lived on the farm where she shared a passion of breeding dairy cattle with her husband. She fell in love with Ayrshires and spent countless hours making breeding decisions and enjoyed showing cattle and managing the herd with her husband until a barn fire took the herd in 1994.
She was the consummate home-room mom as she volunteered to help with her children’s classroom activities and helped keep the Fowlerville band well-dressed as the uniform chairman for years. She ran the 4-H kitchen at the Fowlerville Fair for decades and then moved on to help with the Home Arts division of the fair, making sure all the entries were judged and displayed properly under the grandstand. She never met a fair she didn’t like as she was also a livestock entry clerk at the Michigan State Fair in Detroit.
She couldn’t get enough of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and as recently as December 2022 she went Christmas caroling with her great grandchildren in Montana, walking up and down the snow-covered streets following her legacy from house to house and singing right along with them. She had a passion for agriculture that spanned her entire life, starting as a 4-Her showing her horse, Big Red, at the county fair to winning the Block and Bridle Little International Contest at MSC.
Of all her accomplishments throughout her life, her best and most cherished was being a mom. She loved that job and took it seriously. She was the mom to many young people, taking them in when they needed a home for a day or for a few months. Her home was open to anyone and everyone, and her homemade cookies soothed the soul and made the world a better place for many youths who needed TLC from someone who cared.
She was a member of the Philomathean Society, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization, the First United Methodist Church where she sang in the choir for decades, along with serving on several church committees. She assisted her husband with his insurance business and later with the Fowlerville Coop before it was sold.
She is survived by three children: Virginia (Stan) Raines, Rex Peckens, Melissa (Bobby) Hart; six siblings: Sandra Dean, Partricia Grieve, Rex (Linda) Peckens, Janet Peckens, Judy (Ron) Kay, Mary (David) Drew; grandchildren: Timothy (Laura) Stene, John (Kelsey) Stene, Thomas (Emily) Stene, Aaron Stene, Raynor (Ashley) Stene, Josh Peckens, Adam Peckens, J.W. Hart, Luke (Jessie) Hart, Sarah Hart, Jake Hart; and ten great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents and two sons: Timothy John Peckens and Matthew Adam Peckens.
Memorial contributions are suggested to Home Arts Division of the Fowlerville Fair or the Fowlerville Library’s historical document preservation section. A Memorial service will be held on March 30, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. with visitation starting at 10:00 a.m. at the First United Methodist Church of Fowlerville. Arrangements entrusted to Herrmann Funeral Home. Online condolences may be expressed at pjherrmannfuneralhome.com
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