Virginia's mother, Jessica Higley

On April 20, 1912, four-month-old Virginia, Little Bird, accompanied her mother on the two-and-a-half-day train ride from downtown Chicago to Wendell, Idaho, where they joined Virginia's father, a civil engineer who had found work building bridges along the Snake River.

Wendell, just north of Twin Falls, was a raw western settlement consisting of one dirt road, Main Street, with rough-hewn wooden sidewalks, wooden clapboard buildings, and a single hotel, the Lincoln Inn, where little Virginia sometimes dined with her parents. Over the next four years, they lived outside of Wendell on a small property called "The Ranch," in a plain one-story home with a screened front porch. Beyond the barn, windmill, chicken coop, and small water tower stretched the featureless, isolated expanse of open prairie, a scoured flatness of horizon relieved only by sagebrush and a sparse copse of trees.

Wendell, Idaho

Black-and-white photographs from that era show Little Bird at the age of two in loose overalls and a sun hat, standing with sturdy-legged confidence against a monotonous backdrop of prairie, maternally nestling a kitten or a puppy, sometimes both, in her arms.

"The Ranch"

At three or four years of age, Virginia poses again outside the Critchfield ranch house, triumphantly, if awkwardly, clutching a half-wilted bouquet of wildflowers. She wears a drop-waisted white dress, white heavy stockings with wrinkles etched in the knees, and leather button-strap shoes; a great white bow is pinned to one side of her head, and her straight brown hair is styled in a bob.

These early images of Virginia at the ranch suggest a propensity, from her tenderest years, to appreciate the unadorned honesty of her surroundings, to prize the companionship of animals, to adapt to solitude, and to find security in the love of her parents, two people to whom she would remain deeply attached all her life. In later years, Virginia often attributed her innate shyness to those early, formative years in Wendell, where she spent so much of her time alone.

"Little Bird"

As Ken Critchfield engineered bridges along the Snake River in remote southern Idaho, Jessica rode to outlying ranches, on horseback, to give music lessons. Jessica, later known to friends and family as "Dearie", often accompanied her husband, who played the violin. Her parents' daily concerts would be a cherished, fondly recalled part of Virginia's upbringing.

With her father away building bridges and her mother riding horseback from ranch to ranch teaching music, Little Bird doted on her various ranch pets: ducks, chickens, dogs, cats, horses, and cows. According to Jessica, Virginia's favorites were the dogs and the cows, each one bestowed with its own nickname. On March 1, 1913, Virginia's father surprised her with a little white puppy she named Banjo, and on May 1, he brought her a second dog, an Airedale she named Bonnie. Upon seeing her first coyote at the ranch in November 1913, Virginia cried out, "Oh, pretty doggy!"

Jessica lovingly recorded her daughter's precocious sayings in a baby book, noting that Virginia's very first expression, often repeated, was "Well, well, well." Virginia's mother also noted, "She is rather slangy for a girl. She says, "Doggone it" and "What do you know about that?" and "Beat it." She says, "Bless your old heart," to her dog, Banjo." And when Jessica was lying down one day with a headache, little Virginia came up to her and asked, "What's the matter, hon? Does it hurt all over?" On September 21, 1912, Jessica noted with amusement how Virginia reacted to her first money: "A Lincoln penny was given to her by Fred Clark. She seemed pleased and immediately tried to put it in her mouth." The family's second Christmas, celebrated in Wendell, was marked by a sagebrush Christmas tree and small gifts mailed by relatives and brought over by nearby neighbors.

Virginia's early years included an unusual number of extended journeys. On July 29, 1913, she and her mother left Wendell for Glen Ellyn, where she visited her Higley grandparents until October 20. When Ken was able to join them for three and a half weeks in August, Virginia enjoyed her first automobile ride in Grandfather Higley's new touring car, a Keeton. Owning an automobile in those days was not only a novelty and even a luxury, but also a modern adventure that Cora Higley, true to her independent, outgoing spirit, shared in by learning to drive.