[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 132 (Friday, August 5, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING VIRGINIA LODMELL

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. ANDY BARR

                              of kentucky

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 5, 2022

  Mr. BARR. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of a patriotic 
American, Mrs. Virginia Mae Hudson Lodmell, on the occasion of her 
100th birthday. Mrs. Lodmell lives in Frankfort, Kentucky.
  Mrs. Lodmell was born in southern West Virginia on August 17, 1922. 
She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley and attended 
Beckley College. Wanting to support America's war effort when World War 
II started, she went to work in an ammunition plant in Maryland. On 
December 18, 1943, she enlisted in the WAVES. Following basic training 
in New York, Mrs. Lodmell was assigned to Norman, Oklahoma, as an 
Aviation Mechanist Mate where she worked as an airplane mechanic. She 
also taught classes on radar. She was discharged on November 2, 1945, 
as a 3rd Class Petty Officer.
  Following the war, she married Russell Carl Lodmell. They lived on a 
farm in Minnesota for several years then returned to West Virginia. She 
worked at a Montgomery Ward's store until her retirement. Mrs. Lodmell 
has three sons, John, Joe, and Jim; nine grandchildren; and 27 great-
grandchildren. She is a member of the United Methodist Church in 
Versailles.
  It is my honor to recognize Mrs. Lodmell, celebrate her 100th 
birthday and thank her for her service and sacrifice to our Nation 
during World War II. As a part of the Greatest Generation, Mrs. Lodmell 
and her fellow soldiers were a part of the war effort to preserve the 
freedoms that we enjoy today, and we can never thank them enough. I am 
forever grateful for Americans like Virginia Lodmell.

                          ____________________