Virginia Wigren

       Not much is known of Virginia Wigren except that she has the distinction of being the first female editor of the CCLA’s Chess Correspondent, a post she held from 1953 to 1956.  She was from Chicago and had a journalism major from Northwestern University and had been a magazine editor, fashion copyrighter and an advertising manager.  

       Wigren had been a top female postal player at Al Horowitz’ Chess Review before joining the CCLA.  She served as Rating Statistician from 1950 until she took over as editor of the Correspondent.  It was Wigren who apparently began the CCLA’s Women’s Championship, winning the first two events in 1949 and 1950.  She won the latter with a perfect 11-0.  It was probably an exaggeration, but one of her assistants called her, “the most dangerous correspondence player in the United States.”

       Unfortunately she never kept her game scores and seems to have just disappeared from the chess scene.  A Google search of her name and chess turned up zero results. Below is the one game of hers I was able to locate.