On the worn grass of Soldier Field, four generations of the McCaskey family gathered in the early evening of Jan. 21, 2007. At their center was their matriarch, Virginia McCaskey.

The snow, falling gently, glistened and her eyes sparkled.

She wore her mother Min’s fur coat, looking every bit like the first lady of the NFL that she was. The Bears — her Bears — had just defeated the Saints in the NFC Championship Game for the right to advance to play the Colts in Super Bowl XLI. As fans sang “Bear Down, Chicago Bears,” Terry Bradshaw and Tony Dorsett handed her the trophy named after her father — the George S. Halas Trophy.

It has never been in better hands.

“It’s just lovely,” she said, beaming.

The moment seemed like a dream. Then again, so did most of her life.

Mrs. McCaskey — everyone except family referred to her that way — died Thursday at the age of 102.

“While we are sad, we are comforted knowing Virginia Halas McCaskey lived a long, full, faith-filled life and is now with the love of her life on earth,” the family said in a statement. “She guided the Bears for four decades and based every business decision on what was best for Bears players, coaches, staff and fans.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Mrs. McCaskey “leaves a legacy of class, dignity and humanity. Faith, family and football — in that order — were her north stars and she lived by the simple adage to always ‘do the right thing.’”

With an 80 percent ownership stake in the Bears, Mrs. McCaskey was the oldest owner in the NFL. But that doesn’t begin to describe her place in the league’s hierarchy. “She’s an icon,” Broncos owner Pat Bowlen once said.

She had a better seat to watch more of the history of the NFL unfold than anyone.

Mrs. McCaskey had been alive for all but 36 games in the Bears’ 105-year existence and attended most of them. She witnessed eight of the franchise’s nine championships and had a personal relationship with each of the 30 Hall of Famers associated with the Bears.

She watched the NFL go from a struggling start-up — at one point during her childhood, her father went into her piggy bank and borrowed between $300 and $400 — to the most powerful sports league in America. And she became the leader of a multibillion-dollar company that carries the hopes of millions of fans.

“It’s been an amazing journey from playing in Wrigley Field and having to open the league season with away games because we couldn’t get into Wrigley Field until the baseball season was over,” she said, according to “Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook.” “Dad had an office downtown, but if he wanted to really impress somebody coming in from out of town, he would move to the hotel across the street and pretend that’s where he was doing business.”

She attended her first Bears game when she was 2 years old and attended her last at the age of 101.

When Mrs. McCaskey was 3, her mother and aunt Lil took her along on the historic Red Grange barnstorming tour that opened America’s eyes to pro football. Virginia attended the first 13 games of the 19-game tour across the country. Wearing a red velvet coat and matching bonnet made by aunt Lil, young Virginia contributed to the cause.

“When Red Grange would get off the train, there were so many people waiting to see him they decided I could be his camouflage,” Mrs. McCaskey said in the NFL Films documentary “A Lifetime of Sundays.” “If he wore a hat and carried me off the train, people wouldn’t recognize him. That got him through the crowd.”

One of the highlights of her football life came during her college days at Drexel University, traveling by train from Philadelphia to Washington to watch her Bears defeat the Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 championship game. Afterward, fans tore down the goal posts and she was given some of the splinters. For years, she kept them in her jewelry box.

Not all of her memories were so sublime. When she attended the 1956 NFL championship game at the Polo Grounds in New York, the Bears lost to the Giants 47-7, and it was so cold she said her nylon stockings disintegrated except for the seam in the back.

Losses often brought her to tears, and she frequently was frustrated with the Bears. Nothing rankled her more than falling to the Packers. She said she grew up waiting for Don Hutson to retire. She died waiting for Aaron Rodgers to retire.

She was the one constant who was there for all of it.

None of this was supposed to happen, though. Her father and his wife assumed the baby in Min’s womb was a boy who would be called George Stanley Halas Jr., according to Halas’ autobiography “Halas by Halas.” They didn’t even have a name picked out for a girl.

Growing up, she never thought of herself as the successor to Halas. At Drexel, Mrs. McCaskey majored in secretarial studies with the idea of becoming her father’s secretary. She devoted her early adult years to raising a family, as she and her husband, Ed, had eight sons and three daughters. She now has more than 42 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Her younger brother and only sibling, George “Mugs” Halas, was named team president in 1963, and the plan was for him to succeed their father in charge of the Bears. In 1979, Mugs died of a heart attack. Four years later, their father died, and Mrs. McCaskey took over the team with help from her husband.

“After Dad died, at age 60 I started a whole new life,” she said. “It was pretty scary.”

She said selling the team never was a consideration. Instead, she thought ownership was a sacred duty, and it was a duty she intended for her heirs to carry.

“What would we have if we didn’t retain ownership of the Bears?” she said. “We’d have money. What do you do with money? How important is that? It just doesn’t measure up as far as I’m concerned.”

She was the de-facto owner of the Bears, but her title was unpretentious sounding — secretary of the board of directors. Ed McCaskey, who died in 2003 after 60 years of marriage, was chairman of the board for 17 years.

Mrs. McCaskey had the least ostentatious lifestyle of any NFL owner. She and her husband raised their children in a modest house in the working-class suburb of Des Plaines, later downsizing to a ranch home around the corner.

Her essence could be better captured by looking at what she gave away rather than what she possessed.

A devout Catholic and daily communicant who for decades sat in the front pew for 6:15 a.m. mass in the chapel at Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines, Mrs. McCaskey took pleasure in gifting people rosaries with beads that were orange and navy blue — Bears colors. She also gave away thousands of lawn nativity scenes.

“No one knows how generous she’s been to churches and other faiths,” said her son George McCaskey, whom she named chairman of the board in 2011. “Whether she provided the choir robes, or the altar, or the baptismal font, or the crucifix for this church or that church, only she knows the extent of it.”

She used one of the Bears rosaries daily, to the point that she wore off the color from the navy blue beads and they became white. Instead of listening to sports talk radio, she tuned to Relevant Radio, featuring religious programming involving the Catholic church.

Mrs. McCaskey was an outlier in the NFL’s cutthroat culture. She was irritated by the phrase “next man up,” which describes what happens when a player is injured.

“It sounds so cold,” she said. “It isn’t that. It’s caring about the injured player, getting the proper treatment and rehab and whatever is best for him.”

Like any executive, she had to make difficult decisions. In 1999, she removed her son Michael from his role as team president after a botched attempt to hire David McGinnis as head coach. She made Michael chairman of the board and promoted Ted Phillips to team president.

When George McCaskey fired general manager Phil Emery and head coach Marc Trestman in 2014, he indicated she was on board and told the press she was “pissed off.” Virginia later said those were not the words she used, but she made it clear she had been agitated not only by losing but also by the Bears’ lack of toughness.

She also was given the credit — or blame — for getting rid of the Honey Bears cheerleaders after the 1985 season.

“Michael came to me and said, ‘How would you feel about eliminating the Honey Bears?’” she said in “Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook.” “To me, it was always a distraction. They weren’t really cheerleaders. It was past what goes on in high school and college situations. I always hope our fans would be football fans and interested in the team rather than the trimmings.”

Mrs. McCaskey will be remembered more for the bonds she created rather than those she severed. It was her personal touch that made her distinct.

She was a favorite at NFL functions and was especially connected with members of the Mara, Rooney and Bidwill families.

Mrs. McCaskey was close with generations of Bears players and their families. When the team practiced at Wrigley Field during her childhood, she played Red Rover under the stands with Jo Ann and Artis Lyman, daughters of Hall of Famer Link Lyman. She called him “Uncle Link.” She remembers Jack Manders, the NFL’s first true kicker, sharing apples with her in the 1930s.

Before she was married, Mrs. McCaskey had a crush on Dick Plasman, the NFL’s last player to play without a helmet. “He was so tall and handsome,” she said. She dated Bill Osmanski, who led the league in rushing in 1939 and was named to the all-decade team of the 1940s.

She and her husband and children attended Fourth of July barbeques at the home of Bill George, and the Hall of Hame middle linebacker cultivated her backyard garden.

When Brian Piccolo died at age 26 in 1970, she said it was the only time in her life she questioned God’s will.

“He was such a good person and he was doing so much good in his own special way,” she said in a 2016 interview with The Athletic. “To lose someone like that, I just didn’t understand. He just cared about everybody.”

Her favorite players of all were Piccolo and Walter Payton.

Mrs. McCaskey never called Charles Tillman “Peanut.” He was always Charles to her.

When Brian Urlacher threw a party in Canton, Ohio, for his induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, she showed up at 12:15 a.m. after watching every down of a Bears preseason game. She stayed at the party for more than an hour, taking photographs with anyone who asked and charming all she encountered.

Mrs. McCaskey never was involved in day-to-day decisions at Halas Hall. She put her sons in charge and got out of the way. She was visible around the team as she attended almost every game, home and away, and spoke to the players once a year.

“I try to realize the limitations of my football expertise, and that has led me to try to put the best possible people in place to make the right decisions,” she wrote in the forward to “Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook.” “I have to be careful to do things the way my dad and mother and brother would want them to be done.”

Until her final days, she thought of her father when she made decisions, praying he would lead her.

Said her son George, “She’s the guiding force behind the Bears, and everybody at Halas Hall, including the players, knows that and appreciates that.”

The Pro Football Hall of Fame tried to honor Mrs. McCaskey with their Pioneer Award. She graciously declined, saying she did not feel qualified.

She did, however, make enduring contributions to her team and her league.

“She has set such a great example of how owners of professional teams should conduct themselves, with a quiet dignity and a love of their teams,” Giants president John Mara told the Chicago Tribune. “Too many of us have not followed that example.”

The renovated Halas Hall features a chapel where players and employees of all faiths reflect. The place of worship, believed to be the only one of its kind in the NFL, was conceived of and designed by Mrs. McCaskey.

“God has been very good to our family,” she said in a 2019 interview with The Athletic. “It seems like a way to say thank you.”

The Bears present an award every year to a team employee who demonstrates the values of grace, humility, loyalty and dedication.

It is called the Virginia McCaskey Award.