Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Longtime political activist Virginia Hartigan Cain dies at 95

Virginia Hartigan Cain, a longtime political activist and past chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party, died Tuesday in Los Angeles.  She was 95. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Virginia moved to Asbury Park, N.J. with her family. She returned to New York at age 16 to attend New York University, and graduated at 20.  She later received a master's degree in education from the University of Delaware.

During World War II, Cain was employed as a civilian personnel counselor for the United States Army at Fort Monmouth, N.J. While there, she met her husband of 58 years, Edmund Cain, then a lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps. Virginia and Ed moved around the country and overseas, living in New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Santiago, Chile and, ultimately, Reno, where Ed was Dean of Education at the University of Nevada.

Wherever she was living, Virginia was active in community affairs, including the American Association of University Women and the Business and Professional Women's Association, the National Education Association and state and local Parent Teacher Associations.  Her greatest passion was Democratic Party politics. She fervently believed that active participation in the political process was essential to preserving our democracy.

Her passion for Democratic politics began in 1944, when she cast her vote for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  In addition to active grass-roots efforts for local and state candidates for office, Cain was chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party, a member of the Democratic National Committee, vice chair of the national Association of State Democratic Chairs and a delegate to four national Democratic conventions. The Nevada State Democratic Central Committee annually awards the Virginia Cain Leadership Award.

Cain was involved in numerous presidential campaigns, chairing or co-chairing the Nevada State Democratic presidential campaigns of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton. She met various presidents and candidates, including Harry Truman (at President John Kennedy's inaugural ball), Jimmy Carter (whose son stayed in her house during the 1976 campaign), Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton (for whom she served as an elector in the Electoral College), Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

She was appointed as the at-large delegate to the 1980 White House Conference on Families and served on the Nevada Governor's Advisory Commission on Youth, and the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women and the Governor's Commission on Aging.  In her later years, she served as the president of the Nevada Silver-Haired Legislative Forum and as a member of the Sanford Center on Aging at the University of Nevada, Reno.

While in Reno, Cain was a teacher at Our Lady of the Snows Parochial School and later taught English and American government at Reno High School.  The 1978 United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming her claims of denial of due process in a hiring decision by members of the Washoe County School Board established a significant precedent for the employment rights of women.

She finished her professional career as a project coordinator at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges where her greatest success was the passage of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, which established exclusive tribal jurisdiction for custody proceedings involving Native American children.

Her husband predeceased her. She is survived by her son, Edmund J. Cain, and his wife, Nil Cain, of Los Angeles, her daughter, Mary-Ellen McMullen, and her husband Sam, of Las Vegas, and her son, James Cain, of Arlington, Va; grandchildren, Tammy Cain Bloomfield, Edmund Joseph Cain IV, Deniz Cain, Samuel McMullen Jr., Erin McMullen, Connor Cain and Colleen Cain; and great grandchildren, Samantha Bloomfield, Robert Bloomfield, Edmund Cain V, and Sophie Cain.

A memorial service in Reno, Nevada will be scheduled in the future.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to:

The Edmund J. Cain and Virginia H. Cain Scholarship Endowment

UNR Foundation

Morrill Hall Alumni Center

Mail Stop 0007

Reno, Nevada 89507

Donations may also be made online at the website below:

https://www.unr.edu/giving