Virginia Duffie Steinweg
1913 - 2003
While known primarily as a missionary and educator in South America, where she and her husband, Bruno, served for 43 years, Virginia Steinweg was also active in music-related activities. Most notable was her work in translating and arranging portions of Handel’s Messiah for performance in South America. For several years she organized and directed concerts of this work, in some instances producing recordings of those performances. These achievements were accomplished in addition to her ongoing work as an organist, as a teacher of English and Greek, and in organizing and cataloguing school libraries.
Virginia was born in Battle Creek and raised in Central Lake, Michigan, one of three children of Don Hastings and Susan Maude Sisley Duffie. A 1935 graduate of Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, she had married Bruno W. Steinweg between her junior and senior years. They served as missionaries in South America from 1936 to 1953. Following their return to the U.S., she taught foreign languages and English at Cedar Lake Academy, now Great Lakes Adventist Academy, before they returned to South America in 1958.
She also wrote a biography of M. L. Andreasen, Without Fear or Favor, which was published in 1979. The Steinwegs were honored alumni in 1985 and she was recognized as one of the Andrews University 100 Women of the Century in 2002. She resided in Berrien Springs following retirement where she contributed many volunteer hours to the Ruth Murdoch Elementary School. She was living in Edmonton, Kentucky, at the time of her death at age 89.
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Source: Andrews University alumni magazine, Focus, Winter 2003, 25; Lake Union Herald, 17 July 1956, 5; Her obituary, December 2003; Her father's obituary, 6 October 1964, 13; Atlantic Union Gleaner, 23 October 1979, 6; Social Security Death Index; Siegel Family Tree, Ancestory.com.