Virginia Orr Maes (1920 – 1986) was an American malacologist.
She was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the large Orr family home near Paoli (Pennsylvania).
Virginia graduated from Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1938.
From 1938 to 1940 she attended Wellesley College, Massachusetts. During World War II, Virginia aided the United States war effort by working in a factory.
Virginia's interest in malacology was sparked by a geology course given in the early 1950's by John Dyas Parker, long-time assistant to Henry A. Pilsbry.
She began her work at the Academy in 1955 as a volunteer, leading to a promotion to paid Scientific Assistant, working firstly with Pilsbry and then with Abbott.
She received guidance and informal malacological training primarily from Abbott. Upon her marriage to Robert A. Maes in 1963, Virginia gave up her small salary and became Research Associate, coming into ANSP three days a week.
In 1970 she was appointed Research Fellow and this allowed her to travel extensively for scientific research, focusing on tropical marine mollusks.
This travel was largely funded by the Natural Science Foundation and Alfred J. Ostheimer, a wealthy shell collector who, along with his wife Ruth, joined Maes on collecting expeditions across the world on his yacht, the Gloria Maris.
Destinations included South Africa, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Netherlands New Guinea, New Caledonia, and the Cocos-Keeling Islands.
On these trips Maes processed, curated, and identified specimens for the Academy collections.
As a result, ANSP now has the largest and best Indo-Pacific collection of any museum in the world. Virginia helped substantially to bring this about.
Thanks to her collecting, the academy has an exceptionally fine collection of turrids.
Summarized from a biography by Robert Robertson published on Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 139 (1987)
