Behind the Name: Gretchen

by Miche Rep Melissa O.

Gretchen was born the youngest of two daughters. She was ALWAYS happy and had a smile that would light up the room. She led a normal life, went to high school, met a boy (Brad Smith)and got married. They moved to his family farm where the boy, now a man, took over the farming from his father. Together they had two sons, Quinn and Mason.

As the boys grew, Gretchen was involved in everything the boys were into: Band Boosters, Academic Boosters, and a number of other groups to support her sons. She loved the kids and all of them always seemed to gravitate toward her. Then came the day she found out about the CANCER.

Cancer! She started treatment and was determined to keep things the same for her family. As she fought her battle all the kids from school rallied around her, doing t-shirts sales and even having a surprise purple football game . . . the whole team wore purple and so did the audience (our school colors are orange and black). [The color for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Awareness is purple, so it was perfect]. We all loved to see her smile.

Gretchen’s condition worsened over time, despite treatment and her inspiring will to live; the weekend before she passed away in late 2012, Gretchen and Melissa’s town held a fundraiser for her family and raised $32,000. Melissa then wrote us the following:

I hope to see a Gretchen Shell in the near future. She deserves it. She is a hero to so many. Her fight is an amazing fight of love. [She wanted] to spend her old age with her high-school sweetheart and the family they created together. To see her sons graduate college and high school. She will never do those things now. I would like to remember her in a different way . . . to have her with us as a memory we can wear on our arm. A Shell. A [purple] Shell named Gretchen.