Glenda Edith (Sears) Bradshaw (1941-2019)

BRADSHAW, SEARS, BAUSTIAN, CONNON, BRENNER, ENESS, BARNES

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:12

Obituary from Smith Funeral Home and Cremation Service, Grinnell, Iowa.

Glenda Bradshaw, age 77 of Grinnell, died on Monday, July 15, 2019 at Windsor Manor in Grinnell.

A funeral service will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 22, 2019 at the Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell with Rev. Donovan VanWyk officiating. A reception will follow at the St. Francis Social Center in Grinnell. Interment will be at Chester Cemetery north of Grinnell.

Visitation will be held from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. on Sunday at the Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be designated to the Dallas International University, mailed in care of the Smith Funeral Home, PO Box 368, Grinnell, Iowa 50112. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family online at www.smithfh.com.

Glenda Edith Sears Bradshaw was born in Grinnell on November 24, 1941. She arrived home at the farm north of Grinnell on Pearl Harbor Day. She attended Chester #2 country school through 8th grade and then graduated from Grinnell High School in 1960. She accepted Christ as her Savior as a teenager. She was actively involved in the Chester Church youth group and in county and state 4H programs.

She met Larry Bradshaw while a student at St. Luke’s School of Nursing in Cedar Rapids. They married at Chester Church north of Grinnell on October 5, 1963. After their first year in Cedar Falls, they settled in Cedar Rapids where Melinda, Jenny and Betsy were born. Eventually, they moved to Ames while Larry taught at Iowa State University. After retirement, they lived in Dallas, TX for five years before returning to Nevada, Iowa and then Grinnell.

As a nurse, Glenda worked for Shoyt’s Hospital in Waterloo, an obstetrician’s office in Cedar Rapids, helped in a clinic in Macuma, Ecuador, was the volunteer coordinator at St. Luke’s Hospital, worked at Story County Medical Center and served on the board of Story County Hospital in Nevada, Iowa.

Glenda learned many technical skills from her dad, Dick, and her husband, Larry. She enjoyed remodeling, drafting, photography, offset printing. She was also skilled at knitting, sewing, refinishing, and baking pies that she learned from her mother, Lola, and grandmothers Edith Sears and Myrtle Baustian.

Glenda and Larry were involved with a variety of missions activities. They both participated in the construction of a radio transmitter and then delivering a missing part to the village of Macuma, Ecuador. While in South America, they visited Glenda’s sister and brother-in-law in Bolivia. This trip opened their eyes for the missionaries’ need of printing services. Larry learned and then taught Glenda photography and printing. Crown Production, their home business, printed prayer letters, beginning readers and scripture portions for several different language groups around the world. With those technical skills, they were headed to SE Asia, but God redirected their steps to Papua New Guinea. After retirement, they volunteered at Dallas International University (formerly GIAL), where Glenda processed international student applications and visas.

Once Glenda and Larry moved to Ames, they met many international students. Glenda taught English to three Japanese professors’ wives. They “adopted” three international students: Ween, Lip, and Chen and began a church van service every week. Many more international students were welcome for meals and holidays in their home. Eventually the Iowa State alumni sponsored a trip for Larry and Glenda to Singapore to return the hospitality.

As a farm girl, Glenda was always on the lookout for an acreage where she could watch sunsets. They finally found one south of Ames and dabbled in dairy farming with the benefit of ISU dairy students filling in while they were on vacation. She and Larry spent many years remodeling a family farmhouse north of Malcom and enjoyed camping at their creek. She preserved a variety of produce including elderberries, apples, tomatoes.

Glenda was interested in politics. She ran for the Iowa House of Representatives in 1996 and earned more votes than Bob Dole in Story County without winning. Then she ran for Story Hospital Board and then served for over 12 years.

As Larry neared retirement, they both joined the Ames Red Cross and served at fires, floods and hurricanes until Glenda was diagnosed with alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency and they had to quit to protect her lungs. Even after a diagnosis of frontal lobe dementia, Glenda still enjoyed opening her home for hospitality, even though informal and coordinated by her daughters or friends. Participating in the training of new health care aides helped Mom feel like she had a role in her assisted living facility, Windsor Manor, Grinnell.

Glenda was preceded in death by her husband Larry Bradshaw and her parents Dick and Lola Sears. She is survived by her daughters Melinda (David) Connon, Jenny (Rick) Brenner, Betsy Eness; grandchildren Max Eness, Kathryn Brenner, and Bethany Connon; sister Marilyn (Robert) Barnes and brother Larry (Nancy) Sears.

Glenda’s burial at Chester Cemetery reflects her love of family history. She is among the fifth generation of Sears buried there a half mile from where she grew up. She and her Aunt Ann Sears compiled an Alden Family genealogy book. She transcribed Sylvester Alden’s Civil War letters and discovered his final resting place. Larry caught the research bug as well as they jointly worked to search out his family roots. Glenda’s last genealogy research trip was gathering more information about Lucretia York whose family escaped the massacre at Forty Fort, PA.