Obituary of Grace Ward

Grace Dorothy Jefferson Ward passed away on January 25, 2015 at home in Eugene, Oregon, following a short illness. Grace was born June 15, 1926, in Glendale, CA, to John and Florence (Lytle) Jefferson. Grace grew up in Hemet, in southern California. Her family spent summers car camping on the beaches of Ensenada, in Baja California. When her father, an engineer, moved to the Iron Mountains in eastern California, her mother packed up the car and she and Grace and Grace’s brother, Gene, followed after John. They spent months at a WPA camp in the desert as the crew tunneled through the Iron Mountains building aqueducts that would bring water to Los Angeles from the Colorado River. After graduating from Hemet High School she attended the University of Redlands, graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1949. She met Lewis E. Ward while they were both studying at Berkeley in 1948. They fell in love and after a three-month courtship married in 1949 in Las Vegas, NV. Grace and Lew finally settled in Eugene, Oregon, in 1959 and it is here that they raised their three children, Larry, Dinah and Michael. Coming over the Willamette Pass into the Valley after living for three years in the Mojave Desert, Grace declared that this “beautiful land of green and trees” would be her home for the rest of her life, and it was. Grace was a fierce advocate for peace, the environment and her family. She was an adventurous cook and passed along her love of cooking, food and family feasts to her kids and grandkids. She loved being with her family and exploring the PNW. She was happiest in the outdoors--hiking up French Pete Creek or any of the other trails in the Old Cascades in the McKenzie and Willamette watersheds, camping and fishing on the South Fork of the McKenzie at Frizzle Crossing and the upper Deschutes at the Deschutes Bridge, or on famous crawfish hunts on the Siuslaw River. The intrepid expeditions to the Olympic Peninsula, the Canadian Rockies and all the way up the Alaska-Canada highway to Fairbanks and back were the stuff that family legends are made of. After Grace’s husband’s retirement, she and Lew continued their adventurous ways, attending Elderhostel events and traveling throughout western North America. Grace is survived by her husband, Lewis E. Ward, her children, Larry Ward (Amy) and Dinah Ward Davis (Bill), and grandchildren, Molly Sarver Ward and Elijah Sarver Ward. She was preceded in death by her youngest son, Michael John Ward and granddaughter, Sarah Sarver Ward. Arrangements entrusted to Musgrove Family Mortuary. Please access the obituary and you are invited to sign the guestbook at musgroves.com.