Biography

Virginia Striegel was born to a Keokuk County farm family in 1921 and graduated from Keota High School in 1939. She worked for three years as a telephone operator in Keota before marrying a local farmer, Myron Striegel, in 1943. They farmed a 250 acre farm a mile south of the town of What Cheer and had seven sons. Myron Striegel died in a traffic accident in 1959. At the time, their oldest son was fourteen and the youngest three. Virginia Striegel began farming with her sons. She became active with the Farm Bureau Women’s Chorus and then the Farm Bureau Women’s Committee. She sat on the county board as the chairwoman of the Women’s Committee, and later served as its president. She was the first woman appointed to the State Soil Conservation Commission in 1976 and served twelve years. In 1979 she became the first woman honored as a Master Farmer by Wallace’s Farmer magazine. She currently owns the farm which she operates with a son. She is an assistant commissioner for the Keokuk County Conservation Board and is a member of the regional Resource Conservation and Development Board. She also is active in her church and plays the piano in various churches and nursing homes in the area.

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