The Virginia Health Care Association and the Virginia Center for Assisted Living (VHCA-VCAL), the Commonwealth’s largest association representing long term care, recently honored 24 individuals, including Malvine Zollars.
Twenty-four individuals were selected as part of the “Faces and Stories” in Virginia’s long term care facilities’ 2016 calendar.
Zollars, a resident of the Landmark Center in Stuart, received her first violin for Christmas at the age of ten. She soon became a member of her grade school orchestra. She later learned to play the trombone and was a member of her high school band, graduating in 1943.
She received a scholarship to Waynesburg College where she majored in violin. Before attending college, she and a friend traveled to Detroit, Mich., to work in a defense plant. When she arrived she found out she was too young. She began working in a local restaurant where she met William Graffing King, the concert master for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She began taking violin lessons from King.
While attending school and working, she met a young man who frequented the restaurant, Richard Zollars, the man she would marry. They had four children and were married 43 years.
The family later moved, which turned out to be a great event in her life. The location was near the home of the Symphony Orchestra of the University of California. Zollars introduced herself and soon began playing with the orchestra, performing twice a year“—one of the best times of my life,” she said.
She has traveled all over the world.
Zollars later helped form the Genealogical Society in Waynesburg, Pa.. The society eventually grew to be national and international with member here and overseas, She served as president of this society for many years.
She is also an accomplished author with three books published. She began writing short histories for the genealogical society and grew from there. Her most notable book is “Gone But Not Forgotten,” which is in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. She also wrote “A Tribute to The Ministers of Washington Street United Methodist Church” and “My Dutch Heritage.”
