Birth date: Aug 4, 1923 Death date: Jul 2, 2025
Click here to view livestream Born Winifred Mary Goodrich in Lisle, New York on August 4, 1923, our beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother passed away quietly in her sleep in the early hours of July 2, 2025, at the ag Read Obituary
When I look back on Grandma's life, the thing that stands out to me the most is her consistency and dedication. Through all of life's ups and downs, she was always a shining example of what's possible when you decide to put one foot in front of the other, and just keep going.
When she would work on a puzzle and couldn't find the right piece, or was supposed to be going outside for her walks and wasn't feeling up to it, it wouldn't take much for my dad to be able to coax her out of her chair.
It's almost like quitting wasn't an option for her. No matter how bad it got, she pushed through, because it was absolutely vital that she; finish the crossword so she could check the mail and then wash the dishes in time to watch Wheel of Fortune. She cared deeply about these daily practices that benefitted her physical and spiritual wellbeing, but she also cared deeply about the wellbeing of the people around her.
One of the incredible things about Grandma was her ability to get people involved in conversation without actually saying a single word. I remember countless times at her dining room table, when relatives would come to visit and stay for lunch, and if the conversation ever started to go into a lull, all we had to do was turn to Grandma–still almost halfway done with her first bite of pre-dinner salad–and ask a question about the 1950’s, and bam! The conversation was alive and well again.
Even just by deciding to get up in the morning, Grandma was generating hundreds of interactions and conversations just like that one, and by being a person we all wanted to travel hundreds of miles to check in with every few weeks, she made sure we were also spending quality time with each other. Because of her, we're not just a collection of individuals on a family tree. We're a family. And the strong family ties we share could only have been made through the dedication of someone deciding every day to get up and do her very best in the world.
We miss you Grandma, and even though it's hard right now, I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say; we'll gladly carry the lessons we've learned, and cherish the memories we've made, for another hundred years.
Love you Grandma. 💜
How blessed I am to have the privilege of being Winnie's daughter-in-law for the past 12 years. It has been one of the most treasured relationships in my life.
She taught me much about patience and love.
When people have asked me about Winnie, I tell them that she was
amazing, because THAT is what she was — “amazing”. I could not believe that at her age she had mastered the use of computers, iPhones, iPads, and Kindles. She always stayed informed of the daily news, even more so than I did. She kept her mind sharp with, among other things, solving the newspaper daily Word Jumbles and working 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, any of which would have driven me crazy.
She was patient and was kind.
Psalm 90:verse 12 tells us:
“So teach us all that our days are numbered, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Winnie had a heart of wisdom.
She sought to live a life guided by her faith and a purpose to make a
difference in this world. And that is exactly what Winnie did.
She made a difference for all that knew her and every life that she
touched.
Even though she has gone home to the Lord, she will not be forgotten. She will remain in our hearts and memories forever.
We love you Winnie.
Eulogy
Thank you everyone who shared those memories and readings earlier, and all of you who have shared your condolences with us and with each other over the past two weeks. It’s so important to hear from everyone at a time like this because Mom intersected all our lives in different ways. We can’t form a complete picture of this amazing woman without somehow including all those perspectives.
We all know the story: a young girl who grew up on a farm in upstate New York, went off to college, got married, sailed off with her husband to serve in the mission field and in various churches around the world, and along the way had us six kids.. We're all certainly grateful that that happened, and we literally would not be here today otherwise, but let's think about that story for a minute.
“Mom went off to college.” This is the 1940s we're talking about. The average American had only an eighth grade education back then. Less than 5% of the population had a bachelor’s degree, and most of them were men. How did Mom manage to go to college? The answer is: she was smart. I mean, her favorite subject in school was Algebra, for pete's sake. She was at the top of her class in high school, and on the back of this academic achievement she got accepted to a small Christian college in another state, and off she went. At the age of 16 she left home, got on a bus on her own and headed to Cleveland, Tennessee to begin a new life for herself hundreds of miles away. This was at a time when most people didn't leave their hometown, let alone their home state.
She set out on her own to pursue what I'm sure she thought at the time would be an independent life, because that was the example she had grown up with. Her dad was never in the picture. She was raised by a very pious, very stubborn but very independent mother and aunt. Grandma G, Mom’s mom, had her own income, a steady and respectable job as a secretary in an insurance company, and provided for herself and her small family all on her own. The pastor of the Baptist church Mom attended was a woman. Those were her role models, and I'm sure when she went off to college she had every intention of following in their footsteps and carving out an independent life for herself.
And her timing was perfect, by the way. These were the war years. Men were being drafted into the military, so women were filling posts in manufacturing, science, education, medicine, government, everything. Employment prospects for women were higher in the year she would have graduated than they had ever been, or would be again for decades to come.
So her timing was perfect, she was smart, she had the looks, she had the connections, and I'm sure that's what she thought she was going to do when she landed at Bob Jones. But what happened? She met this handsome, gifted, dewy-eyed, over-optimistic young minister-in-training named Horace and a year later, after a whirlwind romance, she's off to Palestine as a missionary.
Yes, she was young and in love. There is a romantic story here, but I think we need to remember that this decision cost her something. Dad was a year ahead of her and he was ready to go. If she was going to go with him she would have to set aside the future she had planned on. Yet she did so willingly, giving up what she thought she wanted in order to pursue a higher calling. I think she looked at Dad and she saw somebody who was talented and inexperienced and eager to go change the world and she said, “You're going to need some help.” And they were partners in that endeavor from that point forward.
But it’s important to remember that she chose this path, it didn’t just happen. I know this because her favorite Bible verse, I only learned recently, was the one you see printed on the back of the prayer cards in your bulletins:
For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
– Jer. 29:11
That verse doesn’t speak to you, it doesn’t resonate to the point that 80 years later you are still quoting it, unless you've been through that experience. Unless you've had to consciously make the decision and say, “God I place my future in your hands.”
So that's the first clue, I think, as to to who she was.
Then there’s this little matter of her longevity. A hundred and one years is just an amazing span of time when you think about it. She was not quite four years old when Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic. She was only 45 when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. This single lifespan extends from Charlie Chaplin to Steven Spielberg; from radio to television to the internet; from typewriters to word processors (both of which she used, BTW). This was a lifespan that literally saw empires rise and fall: she was there when the Berlin Wall went up at the end of WWI, and when it was torn down in 1989.
She always kept up with the times, but to me personally in some ways she always seemed firmly rooted in 1954 or somewhere thereabouts. I remember going over to her house when I was younger and being surprised that her television somehow still got The Lawrence Welk Show. I don't know how she managed that. Not just Mom’s house but her whole manner seemed to me to evoke this nostalgic decade where neighbors were friendly, nobody littered; everybody went to church. A fantasy, of course, but there was this thing called Mayday that Mom told me used to be a real holiday. On May first, neighbors would stop by and bring you flowers. I mean what a friendly world that must have been. That was Mom, she just seemed rooted in that world view of civility, kindness to strangers, community service, and never left it. Like a boulder in a stream: time just flowed around her. The world went on and became a much meaner place after that, but Mom never did. She was always kind and thoughtful and put other people first. That part just never changed.
If you followed her around with a tape recorder on any given day, the two words you would hear her say most often would be "Thank you." And if you asked her how she was doing, the response you heard–despite neuropathy, tendonitis, arthritis, and chronic pain–would almost always end with, “But all is well.”
She never gave in to cynicism as she grew older. When the church dropped its traditional service, a lot of seniors complained, but not Mom. "The music is not my favorite, but the time is better,” she said. “I just try to enjoy the things about it that I do like."
She was unfailingly generous. I did Mom's taxes for her after Dad died, and now that she’s gone and won’t be embarrassed by this I can tell you that every year, every single year, she gave at least 15% of her income to church and charities. Fifteen percent, sometimes more but never less, even when times were hard and she had barely enough for herself. How many of us can say that? I know I can’t. But that was her: an instinctive generosity.
I realize now that the last 101 years were not for her, they were for us. They were hard on her, but they were good for us. God gave us a hundred years to learn from her example.
In the last few years, when we started taking care of her in a more direct way, we’d have to help Mom with her bedtime medication routine. Mom had dysphagia, which makes it difficult to swallow. Almost every night she would say,
“I don’t want to take this pill, but I know I have to.”
Later on, just walking around the apartment became difficult for her. She would say,
“I don’t want to stand up, but I know I have to.”
And then more recently, I heard her say more than once,
“I don’t want to go, but I know I have to.”
The thing that was hardest for her was the thought of leaving her family that she loved so much.
“I don’t want to go, but I know I have to. Will anybody miss me?”
The stroke took a lot out of her. It was not an easy thing to go through, for her. Mom lost her vision and her strength on her left side, which means things become a little confusing. You lose your bearings in space and time, like a little boat that has come unmoored. You can’t construct a mental map of where you are, or when you are; you struggle to navigate from room to room in your own house, or to remember what day it is. It’s very disorienting, very confusing.
But I started noticing something during these last couple of months. Her world was literally falling apart. Reality loses its grip on you, or you on it, when you go through this. The physical world is not so solid anymore; nothing is as familiar or dependable as it used to be. When Mom was going through this, she started praying more. In a very quiet, childlike way, praying for little things, like getting from one room to another,
“Please help me … please help me…”
–whispered, under her breath. Then we’d get to where we were going and she’d say,
“Oh thank you … thank you …”
This went on for a few days, and then the prayers became more explicit. She’d say “Lord please help me,” and then when we’d get there she’d say “Thank you Lord.”
Mom would have good days and bad days. Some days she’d wake up clear as a bell and seem to be able to walk a little better, then a few hours later she’d struggle again. But as this went on, day after relentless day, I began to notice that those prayers didn’t change. Her situation changed chaotically from day to day, even from hour to hour, but those prayers were constant, consistent, steadfast.
And every night, at bedtime, she would pray, first for herself, because it’s very scary what she’s going through, and then for her children, for her family, and end by thanking God for helping her through the day. And she would ask to be granted one more day.
It’s like “reality” was being stripped away and underneath you were seeing what Mom was really made of. Until finally, one day, this all culminated in another one of these bedtime prayers. There was a change in the tone of her voice. She started saying,
“Lord, I love you! I love you so much!”
“Lord Jesus, I love you, I love you so much!”
–calling Him by name, over and over. It was a little embarrassing, it was so intimate, so personal. Her face was just radiant. Her heart was bursting, you could tell. Her heart was just full of joy and gratitude; I don’t know how else to explain it.
“I love You. I love You so much!”
I know that hospice nurses will tell you that this could be what’s called a euphoric episode. When you’re going through this, you can have moments of anxiety, sometimes moments of euphoria. Maybe that’s what that was. Or maybe, just maybe, God was pulling back the curtain just a little bit for her, to give her just a glimpse of where she was headed. And that glimpse was so overwhelming and so powerful that it just flooded her heart with joy and gratitude. That’s certainly how it seemed to her.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. In a moment like that, when this happens to you, when your world is literally falling apart, you don’t make things up. The games we play all day long to present a certain persona to the world, to convince people that we are a certain way–that’s all gone. You don’t have the facility for that. The gloves are off, there is no filter any more. You don’t start repeating platitudes you’ve heard but don’t really believe. Who you are is what comes out. And who Mom was in that moment, when everything else was stripped away, was this strong, independent little girl who just loved God so much. Because she knew that somehow, against all the odds, by some miracle of grace, He loved her. It was as simple, and as hard, as that.
I’m sorry if that sounds like a sermon. But I think maybe Mom’s life was a kind of sermon.
I never knew anyone so childlike in their resolve to always do the right thing. I never knew a more cheerful giver, a more unselfish person. I never knew anyone so grateful for so little.
She inspired me.
She drove me crazy.
I will miss her every day.
In Loving Memory of Grandma Sams
Grandma,
There’s a special place in heaven for souls like yours. You spent your life putting family first—with unwavering love as a devoted mother, grandmother, and wife. Your faith never wavered, and you lived each day with grace, integrity, and steadfast values. You were the most incredible role model, and your legacy of love and strength will live on through all of us.
I promise to carry on the Sams tradition—staying true to myself, strong in my faith, devoted to family, and committed to hard work. I’ll follow the example you set, and the example of your children, by living with strong character and striving to make a difference through education and service to others.
When I last saw you, I told you I’d be visiting Wales, England, and London soon. That trip is now just weeks away, and I’ll carry you with me as I walk the streets where our family roots began—grateful for the foundation you helped build.
I will miss you deeply. But I find peace in knowing that you’ve been reunited with Grandpa, Judy, and all those you’ve loved and longed to see again. What a beautiful homecoming that must have been.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day…”
— 2 Timothy 4:7–8
Thank you for being the heart of our family Mom! I will forever cherish the moments we shared. 101 years on this earth wasn’t long enough! I miss you more than words can say & will carry your love with me always.
