Virginia Worthington never wore a uniform, but like many military spouses, she served her country in significant ways. During the Cold War, she worked as an executive secretary at U.S. embassies in Europe; opened a store and restaurant to serve Americans abroad; and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, helped create “The Berlin Wall Art Collection.”
When Worthington was inurned at Arlington National Cemetery on April 11, 2025, U.S. Army Chaplain (Capt.) Emonena Itugbu acknowledged her contributions by saying, “Today, Virginia has earned a place here in Arlington National Cemetery.”
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1945, Virginia Richardson met her future husband, Cal Worthington, during a church service in Atlanta, Georgia. “From that day on,” Cal said, “I could think of no one but her.” They married in 1964.
That same year, Cal enlisted in the U.S. Army and joined its counterintelligence program, rising to the rank of chief warrant officer 4. His assignments took the couple to U.S. embassies in Budapest, Moscow, the Hague and West Berlin, where Virginia worked as an executive secretary. “Every assignment that we went to, she was working,” Cal said, “and often her job was more interesting than mine.”
While in Berlin during the late 1980s, Virginia realized the Army and Air Force Exchange Service lacked movie cassette options. She decided to open her own video store, which eventually contained around 4,500 movies.
The video store proved to be just the beginning of Virginia’s efforts to improve American morale in West Berlin. Service members and civilians who visited often complained that the city lacked an American-style pizza and submarine sandwich restaurant. With her video collection growing, Virginia moved the video store to a larger building a few blocks away and opened a pizza restaurant in the store’s old location.
The store and restaurant brought a little bit of home to Americans in West Berlin. “There was always a line standing outside,” Cal recalled. “Then, the Germans discovered the restaurant and started coming in. It was definitely an overwhelming success.”
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the memories of a divided Germany led the Worthingtons to purchase sections of the wall and ship them to the United States. In 1991, the couple worked with the director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum to create the “Berlin Wall Art Collection,” which commissioned three Russian artists to paint more than 100 slabs of the wall. After its premiere in New York City, the exhibition toured cities throughout the United States.
In her later years, Virginia worked with her husband on “Send Courage to Congress,” a project to send copies of President John F. Kennedy’s famous book “Profiles in Courage” to freshmen in Congress. Unfortunately, she did not live to complete the project. Cal is working to finish her vision.
For their fiftieth anniversary, he wrote a song for her, “Soulmates — Virginia’s song.” It includes the stanza: “The rarest event in the known universe is for two soulmates to find each other on this earth. O’ I found you; I found you, and you found me. Two soulmates on a journey of destiny.”
Cal wanted Virginia inurned at Arlington National Cemetery so their daughter and granddaughter, who live in Maryland, could visit. He added, “To be among an august group of movers and shakers of history and our country, one can feel a sense of privilege being here.”
Virginia’s legacy remains. The pizza restaurant she opened still operates in Berlin today, symbolizing her commitment to Americans far from home.
