Lorraine Eloise Gribbens

A Memorial Service for Lorraine E. Gribbens, who died December 29, 2009, will be held Thursday, January 7, at 3 pm at Biltmore United Methodist Church, Asheville. Officiating will be Rev. Suze Pillsbury-Taylor and Rev. Ashley Stanley-Crowder. Ms. Gribbens was born August 25, 1920, in Chicago to Emma and Lee Earl Gribbens. After both parents died when she was eight, she was raised by various relatives. Following plant work dur-ing the war, she became a lab assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago where the direction of her life was altered forever. She was able to take college courses and eventually enrolled in the College of Pharmacy, receiv-ing a BS in 1953. Ms. Gribbens felt God's call to become a missionary and through The Woman's Divison of the Mission Board of the Methodist Church was assigned to Christ Hospital in Sarawak, Borneo as a pharmacist in 1958, serving there eighteen years. She later worked in Fiji and then Harlan, KY. After her retirement she served as a volunteer in Hospital Lumiere in Haiti for more than three years. She moved to Asheville and was active in Biltmore United Methodist Church, as well as in local and district United Methodist Women. She also was a member of Blue Ridge Braillers, helping school children by transcribing Braille. She is survived by cousins in Chicago and a large circle of friends. Memorials may be made to Biltmore United Methodist Church or to Brooks-Howell Home where she had lived for the past eight years.