Virginia Martin Nash, John Nash’s mother, is described as an “outgoing and energetic” woman who is “less rigid” than her husband, John Nash Sr., and is the caring, capable matriarch of the Nash family. Throughout A Beautiful Mind, Virginia provides for John Nash, her only son, helping to care for him between his hospitalizations for schizophrenia and providing funds to bail him out of trouble. “A born teacher,” Virginia helps to encourage Nash’s early talents as a young student, though she also struggles to come to terms with Nash’s erratic behavior as an adult. She dies in 1969, throwing her family into further disarray.