Wilhelmina T. Loomis, CCAS AA ’52, GWSB BA ’54, who had an accounting practice in Alexandria for many years, died Dec. 8.
Wilhelmina Lucia Tortike was born in Amsterdam. She fled the Netherlands in 1940 after German forces overran the country early in World War II.
She lived with her family in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) until the Japanese army invaded the Dutch colony. She and her family were held in prison camps on the island of Batavia until 1945.
She met her future husband, a U.S. Army Air Forces officer, as he searched for Western survivors of the prison camps. They were married at Washington National Cathedral in 1947.
Mrs. Loomis worked at the Dutch embassy before graduating with honors from George Washington University in 1954. She opened an accounting business in Washington in 1957 and moved her office to Alexandria two years later.
She was a member of several professional groups and made an unsuccessful run for the Alexandria City Council in 1973.
Mrs. Loomis was a founding member of what is now St. Andrew and St. Margaret Anglican Catholic Church and later became a member of St. Rita Catholic Church, both in Alexandria.
Read the full tribute at The Washington Post.
