Grace Verona Jorgensen's Obituary
The world was a different place on Dec. 6, 1920 when Grace Hosterman was born. Until she was 19, she lived in the small farming community of Menno, South Dakota (current population: 614). Her mother Helen took care of Grace, her younger brother Donald (“Don,” Don Hosterman Obituary (2017)), and their home while her father, Lee, was the town blacksmith.
She had a lasting love for Menno and its people. Her first job was teaching in a one room school in Menno. Decades later, a friend, Dean, made her a bird-house-sized model of that Menno schoolhouse that she cherished for the rest of her life. In 1995, she visited Menno for the last time. Some 50 years after she had left, people still recognized her on the street and invited Grace into their homes to catch up.
In 1939, Grace’s parents moved to Northern California. She followed. She was working as a telephone switchboard operator when she met Robert (“Bob”) Lydigsen. They married on June 2, 1945 and moved to the Chicago area near Bob’s family, and raised three children in Oak Lawn, Illinois: Katherine (Jack) Herbig, Theodore (Janet) Lydigsen, and Paul (Judy) Lydigsen. While raising a family, she went back to school, earning a B.A. and M.S. in education from Chicago Teacher’s College. She taught school in Oak Lawn and Blue Island, Illinois. She retired as the High School Librarian in 1983.
Everywhere Grace went, friendships followed. She and her second husband, Edwin (“Ed”) Jorgensen, settled in Vista, California, in the mid-1980s. She sang in the choir and played bells at First Lutheran Church in Vista, quilted extensively, became a big fan of the San Diego Padres, traveled the world both with and without Ed, and made dear friends.
One constant through all Grace’s travels was the importance of her family to her. In addition to her three children, she is survived by six grandchildren, including Laura (Shanti) Kulkarni, Melissa (Adam) Turner, Amy (Dalton) Winter, Thomas (Jennifer) Lydigsen, Dan (Jennifer) Lydigsen, and Andrew Herbig, nine great-grandchildren, and her niece Holly Hosterman. Although her children and grandchildren were spread around the country between Chicago and California, she always made time to visit each year well into her 80s. Thanks to Grace, her grandchildren all share libraries of the best children’s and young adult literature, carefully curated by Grace and marked with personalized notes to each of them. Without fail, every Christmas season would also bring them each a box with carefully wrapped gifts, an always surprising mix of those thoughtfully-chosen books, mementoes from wherever her and Ed’s global travels had taken them that year (cow bells from Switzerland, lace from Belgium, lighthouses from everywhere), combined with whatever strange things were being sold on late night infomercials. Who doesn’t want a lawn sprinkler disguised as a helicopter under their Christmas tree? Remember Topsy Tail?
Grace celebrated her 100th birthday with family in December 2020. Thanks to Covid lockdown procedures, she was separated from them by six feet, a screen, and a hedge, but it was still a great final celebration of her life. She was intelligent, kind, and witty even at 100. Grace lived life to the fullest and will be missed greatly by all who knew h
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