Mrs. Virgina Eason Weinmann
Virginia Lee Eason and John “Jack” Eason Weinmann met on a blind date in her hometown of Oklahoma City in 1946 when she was 16 and Jack was 17. Nine years later, in 1955, they were married. Jack was a native New Orleanian. He graduated from Tulane Law School in 1952 and practiced law at Phelps Dunbar for 28 years. He was Rex, King of Carnival (1996), and represented the U.S. as Ambassador to Finland during the first Bush administration. He was also the U.S. Commissioner General for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition. Jack and Virginia were married for almost 61 years when Jack passed away on June 9, 2016, at the age of 86. They have four sons: Winston Eason Weinmann, Robert St. George Tucker Weinmann, John Giffen Weinmann, Jr., George Gustaf Weinmann, a daughter, Mary Virginia Lewis Weinmann Coffman, 16 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Jack was a lifelong member of Trinity Episcopal Church. He served on the Vestry and as Vice Chairman of the School Board. Because of Jack, Virginia has been an active parishioner and leader in the Trinity community for over 60 years. She believes inclusiveness is what makes Trinity stand out from other places of worship. This is where she feels at home. In 2019, Virginia was asked to review documents for a 20+ year campus master plan for Trinity in a feasibility study. Although ambitious, Virginia understood the necessity of the projects for the future of Trinity and wanted to somehow help make that vision a reality. After conversations with clergy, some iced tea on the front porch of the historic home, and a very determined climb up the narrow stairs all the way to the third floor to see the disrepair of the building, Virginia decided she had to get involved and knew exactly how she could help make sure the legacy of Trinity, her home, continued.
Thanks to Virginia’s generous donation, the historic home on the corner of Josephine and Coliseum Streets will be reconfigured and upgraded to provide new space for pastoral care and administrative use. The building will be named the Weinmann Center for Pastoral Care & Administrative Complex and will affectionately be known as and called Jack’s House after her late husband. When asked how she came up with the name, Virginia smiled and simply replied, “because Molly’s House needs a Jack’s House, and I think he would have liked that.”