This cache is part of the Linn Creek Trail: Marshalltown History series. Follow the bike trail to a series of caches highlighting prominent figures in Marshalltown history. Each cache will require you to leave the trail and search for a hidden cache. The caches in this series vary in difficulty and terrain.
Virginia Horne-Henry (1912-1997)
In August, 1997, the news came to the Y that Virginia Horne-Henry, a woman who had grown up in Marshalltown during the Roaring 20’s, had left her entire fortune of $28,000,000 in a Remainder Trust to the Marshalltown YMCA and YWCA.
The organizations were to be given the interest and dividends from that trust annually for perpetuity. The new Horne-Henry Center was constructed beginning in April of 2002 and opened its doors to members on January 4, 2004, after 20 months of construction. The beautiful new 122,000 square foot facility features a recreational pool, a gymnasium housing two regulation-size basketball courts, 3 racquetball courts, 5 locker room areas, large exercise areas, and a competition size pool seating 1700.
Virginia Horne Henry received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the UW-Madison. After graduation, she taught swimming, tumbling, and physical education at the University of Wisconsin. She also taught at Wellesley College and the University of Illinois. She was the author of “Stunts and Tumbling for Girls: A Text for High Schools and Colleges.” In her book, she described the objectives and values of Women’s Physical Education to be the process of gaining knowledge and understanding of the human body and its range of motion, the appreciation of the human body, the development of such qualities as creativity, courage, self-confidence, and perseverance, and “an appreciation for the recreational values of physical accomplishments”.