Grace L. Dunham

Grace Lucy Dunham, an approved servant of God, fell asleep in Jesus Christ at the West Prairie Lutheran Parish parsonage in Viroqua, Wisconsin, on May 1, 2021.  She was 88 years old.

Grace was born to Stanley and Lucy Strachan in Detroit, Michigan on October 28, 1932.  One of Grace’s earliest memories was of her parents’ conversion to their new life in Christ when she was just six years old.  Stanley had just returned home from the funeral of a co-worker, and he said to Lucy, “The pastor at the funeral asked everybody if they knew where they were going to spend eternity when they died.  I have no idea, do you?”  Lucy had no idea either, and the next morning Grace accompanied her parents to church to hear the same pastor again.  That very day, their lives were changed forever through the power of the Holy Spirit.  “My mother and father were completely different people after that church service,” Grace recalled. “They were truly a new creation, and they brought me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

After graduation from high school in Goderich, Ontario (Canada), Grace married a man who would soon abandon her and their infant daughter, Margaret.  Undaunted, and never in doubt of the Lord’s leading in her life, Grace returned to Detroit for a better job and to raise her daughter in the company of Christians at Strathmoor Judson Baptist Church. While working at General Motors, Grace met her future husband, David Dunham, whom she married on September 21, 1963.  Grace and David had two sons, Daniel and Timothy, whom they too raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Grace’s grateful response to the outpouring of God’s grace in her life was made evident in the tireless love and compassion she had for others.  At 47 years old she fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a Registered Nurse, and for the next 30 years served as a postpartum nurse at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, and as a Hospice nurse in Royal Oak and Jackson, Michigan.  Due to a fervent desire to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), Grace hosted and taught backyard Bible clubs every summer throughout the 1970s and 80s for the children of her inner-city Detroit neighborhood.  After retiring to Hillsdale, Michigan, in 2000, she continued to share the good news of Christ’s love as a children’s Sunday School teacher and as a Hospice volunteer.  Throughout her life, Grace never wavered from her commitment to tell the story of Jesus to all of her family and friends, so that they too would know the joy of serving Him, as well as have the assurance of knowing where they were going to spend eternity when they died.

The final adventure in Grace’s lifelong pilgrimage was to accompany her son, Timothy, to Viroqua, Wisconsin, where he was called in 2019 to serve as pastor at West Prairie Lutheran Parish.  Here in this new church community she was blessed to receive the same love and compassion that she had always shown to others, and she continued to thrive until her final days, both as a prayer warrior and vibrant witness for her Lord and Savior.

Grace is survived by her sons, Daniel and Timothy; her daughter-in-law, Taylor; and her grandchildren, Emmet and Lauren.  She is preceded in death by an infant brother, her parents, two sisters (Dorothy and Lois), her husband, David, and her daughter, Margaret.

Grace will be buried at North West Prairie Lutheran Church on Thursday, May 6, with a funeral service at 11:00 a.m. and a reception to follow in the fellowship hall.  Visitation is at 10:00.  Reverend William Rice will officiate.

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