Gretchen’s selfless nature was inspired by a keen awareness of her blessings and a deep sensitivity to others who were less fortunate. She spent a lonely childhood on her family’s farm, and had a difficult but brief marriage to her high-school sweetheart. Gretchen then remarried happily to a successful physician but was widowed after just twelve years. She married again, this time to Mark’s best friend, Sheldon, whom she also lost to lengthy illness.

Sharing a common grief for their lost loved one, Mark and Gretchen soon were seeing each other with some frequency. “Gretchen wondered if perhaps it was too early to consider a new relationship,” said Mark, “so she consulted our rabbi. ‘Life is for the living,’ was his advice – so she took it.” Within two years, the couple wed.

As Mark’s wife, Gretchen continued her lifetime habit of helping others in ways big and small. “She enjoyed doing the behind-the-scenes work,” said Mark. “She cooked a full meal every month for a homeless shelter. She served on the board of the Sight Center – but she also read to the blind. She donated to the Humane Society‚ but she’d also clean cat boxes and cages as a volunteer.”

Gretchen was well-off in her own right before she married Mark, a successful commercial real-estate developer, so she managed her own funds. “She didn’t buy expensive clothes or a lot of stuff for herself,” said Mark. “But she couldn’t figure out where all her money was going. I said ‘Give me your checkbook and I’ll tell you.’ Then I discovered nearly all of her personal expenditures were gifts to charity.”