Virginia Green Snow, 84, Restored Antique Homes

Virginia Green Snow died peacefully in her sleep on August 4 in Kennebunk, Me. The daughter of Howard Leavenworth Green and Edith Elizabeth Smith, she was born Virginia Frances Green in Cleveland, Ohio, on Feb. 14, 1918.

She was graduated from Wellesley High School, from Child Walker School of Art in Boston in 1939 and was a special architecture student at MIT. In fact, she registered for MIT during the Hurricane of 1938, making it home just before a large tree crashed in the driveway. She later worked and took courses at Harvard Business School.

During World War II, she worked at Cushing General Hospital as a coordinator of visits to businesses where recovering soldiers might work after their discharges. She met her future husband, Richard Snow, at the hospital, and they married in 1946.

After accompanying him to Rhode Island for G.I. Bill schooling, they established a home in Sudbury in a house built in 1750. This began their lifetime of restoring antique houses.

They also started a business, Old Lancaster Designers. They produced hand-screened wallpaper with original designs and historic reproductions. They produced stationery featuring customers' homes, and household linens with printed and vat-dyed designs.

In 1954 the Snows moved their business to Woodstock, Vt., where they also began house restoration on their new antique home, built in 1826. After several moves, in 1965 they settled in their last antique house (built in 1761) in Redding, Conn.

Virginia was an artist who expressed herself in paintings, their business, restoring antique houses, gardening and storytelling. Many friends treasure her hand-painted Christmas cards. Her greatest loves were her gardens and meandering with her husband to find the perfect scene to paint. She and her husband shared 45 years, enjoying their art, their love of music and their children.

Virginia is survived by three children: Christopher Snow of Kennebunk, Richard Snow of Belmont, and Deborah MacInnis of Edgartown, and their spouses, Marleigh Snow, Diana Snow and Hugh MacInnis. She is also survived by three grandchildren, Christopher Thomas, Hannah Ruth and Erin Abbott of Kennebunk.

She was predeceased by her husband on June 12, 1991, and also by her brother, Prentice Green.

There was a service at the Congregational Church of Wells (Me.), UCC, on August 8. Interment will be in Pine Grove Cemetery in Westborough this fall.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to local Disabled American Veterans organizations or to the student scholarship program at Featherstone Center for the Arts, Box 2523, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.

Arrangements are by the Bibber Memorial Chapel, 67 Summer street, Kennebunk.