Among the late Elaine N. McConnell’s focus issues as Springfield District supervisor was public safety. Here she’s pictured at the 2005 groundbreaking of the McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center. Photo courtesy of Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield)
When the aquatic plant Hydrilla was invading Burke Lake in the mid-1980s, there was an attempt to introduce a population of grass carp to eat it. Michael Frey, former Sully District Supervisor, convinced then-Springfield District Supervisor Elaine N. McConnell to put the first fish into the lake at a press event. Frey was McConnell’s chief of staff for seven years before serving beside her on the Board of Supervisors for another 16 years until she stepped down in 2007.
Rather than place the ten-inch creature in the water, “she kind of tossed it,” Frey said, “up in the air, it was like slow motion, tumbling head over heels.”
The fish hit the water with a smack, news cameras rolling; Frey thought she had killed it. After floating on the surface for a moment, the carp shook its head and swam away. “She just had this look on her face of ‘Oh, I did that, didn’t I,’” said Frey.
Having a good sense of humor and not taking herself too seriously are just two characteristics Frey and others remember about McConnell, who died of heart failure Sunday Jan. 10 in her Springfield home at age 88. She and her husband Warren “Mac” McConnell, a World War II veteran, had just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary the previous Wednesday.
Above all, Frey said, McConnell was a people-person. “Whether constituents, colleagues, county staff, whatever. She heard them, listened and responded to people. It was her biggest interest and greatest strength as a politician, that people liked her and felt like she liked them.”
McConnell and Mac moved to Fairfax County in 1961 from her native Jacksonville, Fla. with their three children. McConnell’s daughter Susan Corbett, the oldest, remembers her as an amazing pianist and vocalist, a wonderful cook of both Italian and Southern food, and a talented writer who penned poems, plays and a musical, “The Infant’s Touch.”
“She was a multi-faceted person,” Corbett said. “She just couldn’t sit still, couldn’t relax, did not know how. She was driven.”
McConnell was very attentive to her family, making sure holidays and birthdays were lavish and special despite family’s blue-collar status, and helping nieces, nephews and uncles with loans, finding jobs, etc. “Everyone was touched by her, her graciousness and generosity,” said Corbett. “It was truly a family-first kind of thing.”
After arriving in Springfield, McConnell’s drive and care for others took her outside the home, when in 1964 she founded the Accotink Academy, a preschool which was an early leader in the region for serving children with learning disabilities. Working with the Academy, McConnell’s writing on handwriting and math disorders was considered groundbreaking and recognized nationally.
“I always knew my mother was too big to contain in the house,” Corbett said. “She was bored, she had a very active mind and wanted to be challenged, reach out, be expansive. She loved working with people.”
That determination and drive to help others eventually led her to the Supervisor’s office, where she served the Springfield District for 24 years.
As a strong advocate for public safety and transportation issues, McConnell was key in bringing about the construction of the McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center. She served as chairman on the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and was known as the “mother of the Virginia Railway Express.”
“The VRE would not be here today without Elaine McConnell,” said Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield). “She was the one that really brought Norfolk Southern to the table.”
Herrity said what made McConnell a great supervisor was not just her advocacy, but that “she was a very caring person.”
“It all came down to doing the right thing to people with Elaine,” Herrity said.
Having played organ and sung in church herself, McConnell was also a “big friend of our churches,” Herrity said. She was a charter member of Messiah United Methodist Church in Springfield, the congregation of which first met in the Accotink Academy before moving to their own building.
“She was always the one who cared about those who were hurting, the less fortunate,” said Messiah associate pastor Randy McMillen. “She was there trying to change people’s lives, make them better. She was that voice here, encouraging us.”
Helpful to the end, McMillen said McConnell arranged for her son Matthew to sing the solo “O Holy Night” around Christmas at the church.
McConnell is survived by her husband Mac who still lives in their Springfield home, daughter Susan Corbett of South Carolina, sons Matthew and Mark McConnell, also of Springfield, and nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
A visitation is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 15 at Accotink Academy, 8519 Tuttle Road. in Springfield, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. McConnell’s funeral is scheduled to take place at Messiah United Methodist Church, 6215 Rolling Road in Springfield, at 11 a.m. on Saturday Jan. 16.