Jay Dickey: “this time is dedicated to the memory of one of my constituents, Virginia Clinton Kelley. She was born Virginia Cassidy…”

“this time is dedicated to the memory of one of my constituents, Virginia Clinton Kelley. She was born Virginia Cassidy on June 6, 1923, in Bodcaw, AR, a small community about 12 miles from Hope. She died of cancer on June 6, 1993. Virginia graduated from Hope High School in 1941 and went on to nursing school in Shreveport, LA, where she met and married William Jefferson Blythe III. Their son, William Jefferson Blythe IV who is now our President was born on August 19, 1946, a few months after his father died in an automobile accident. Virginia obtained her certification as a nurse anesthetist at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She then married Roger Clinton. Their family moved to Hot Springs, AR, in the early fifties where her second son, Roger, was born July 25, 1956. She worked as a nurse in Hot Springs until her retirement in 1981. Virginia is survived by her husband, a very fine man by the name of Richard Kelley, of Hot Springs, and her two sons, Bill and Roger Clinton, and one grandchild, Chelsea Clinton. The best quote was given by Melissa Gassaway, editor of the local Hot Springs paper, after her death: "Change was a constant in Virginia Kelley's life, yet she refused to be transformed by events large and small, catastrophic or euphoric, into someone she was not." Melissa has also said that Virginia was the "best ambassador that Hot Springs has ever had." At her funeral she was described as an American original; she was and she stayed that way.”