By Martha Steger

As the year wanes, I return to its beginning when VPC lost a former member and great friend on January 11: Heloise Bertman “Ginger” Levit, who was 86. Some of us will remember her as the hostess-with-the-mostest who opened her art-filled West End Richmond home to VPC (then VPW) members one evening before a meeting. 

Those who knew her longer will remember her as a local broadcast reporter covering the Virginia General Assembly, but her French friends, according to past VPC president Sande Snead, simply knew her as “the great GiGi.”

Known for her passion for the arts and all things French, Ginger, raised in Haddonfield, N.J., was a proud graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in French. She also held two master’s degrees – one in French literature from the University of Richmond and the other in art history from Virginia Commonwealth University. During her career she initially taught French but found a calling in regional arts news; she ended her career as an art gallery owner. 

As an Arts correspondent for WRFK-FM and WCVE-FM, she produced an award-winning series on Virginia women in conjunction with the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. In 1975, she began the broadcast of her Virginia Arts Report, which aired on public and commercial radio stations throughout the Commonwealth. Especially memorable was “The Picasso Minute,” a radio program exploring the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ landmark exhibition, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris. Her articles on art and antiques won awards in VPW’s annual communications contest.

During her trips abroad, Ginger studied French art, language, business and culture at the Alliance Française, the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre in Paris and Italian at Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute in Florence and Perugia’s Università per Stranieri. Her love of Paris and France began in 1958 when she and her sister Susan cruised to France on the ship SS Liberte. In 2009 Ginger was honored by Virginia Lawyers Weekly as one of its “Influential Women of Virginia.” 

Also in 2009, Sande fondly remembered that she and her boyfriend “landed in Paris the day that Ginger (aka GiGi) was hosting her annual soiree at L’Hotel at 13, rue des Beaux Arts. It was so amazing to arrive on the other side of the pond to find my very French, elated fellow VPW member. Though we arrived in rumpled travel clothes, she introduced us to her ‘bodyguard,’ another couple from Richmond, and plenty of Parisians as if we were French royalty. After Ginger’s death, her daughter, Darcy Levit, and I met for lunch at Ginger’s favorite Can Can and reminisced about this magnificent lady. Darcy told me she always threw this party at the beginning of her ‘season’ in Paris and thus secured invites for lunches, dinners and other parties for the rest of her time there.”

A cherished memory from Ginger’s life, according to her obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, was guest-conducting the Richmond Symphony’s holiday concert: “As with all endeavors, Ginger did not miss a beat and reveled in being on stage and conducting ‘Sleigh Ride.’”

A Renaissance woman, she also cherished the fulfillment of a longtime goal in curating an art exhibit at Virginia Commonwealth University of Degas prints from a rare book she discovered while in Paris. Ginger is survived by her husband Jay J. Levit; children, Richard, Robert and Darcy; and grandchildren, Diana, Sarah, Joshua, Carmen and Grant.