Her husband, who called her Ginny, once described her as "redheaded and quite ... an athlete -- four letters in college -- and [she] could probably lick me in a fair fight.... She outranks me on the Navy rolls, which seems to give her quite a bit of satisfaction."
Athletic throughout her life, she once saved Robert's life when he collapsed on a hill in Tahiti. Although shorter than he, she threw him over her back and carried him down to the beach, where he was flown to Australia for medical treatment.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday January 28, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 13 inches; 470 words Type of Material: Correction
Heinlein obituary -- The obituary of Virginia Heinlein, literary manager and muse of her husband, science fiction author Robert Heinlein, in the California section Sunday erroneously stated that his rank on leaving the Navy was first lieutenant. It was lieutenant junior grade.
Another time, she amazed him and a friend, writer Jerry Pournelle, when they were snowbound at their house in Colorado Springs. The two men were desperate for breakfast, but seeing no hope of obtaining any after inspecting the Heinleins' 1948 Cadillac frozen to the driveway, returned glumly to the kitchen. There, to their astonishment, was Virginia, frying bacon and eggs.
"She said, 'I just went up the hill and got some. There were steel lugs in the tire, some water in the driveway, and the tires had frozen, so I just took a pot of hot water and got them loose and drove up the hill.' "
Virginia Heinlein, Pournelle said, "was a better engineer than he was. He was very proud of her."
She was the model for many of the superwomen who crop up in her husband's stories, such as Maureen Johnson Smith, the mother of the immortal Lazarus Long in "Time Enough for Love," published in 1973. The female characters tend to have red hair, like Virginia's, as well as great wit and an ability to overcome adversity with aplomb.
Greg Bear, a science fiction writer who knew the Heinleins, said he has met women who were inspired by Robert's stories to become scientists. "And Robert," Bear said, "was inspired by Ginny. Ginny was their original."
The Heinleins had no children. Her ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, as were her husband's.
