Gwen Grimke

Woodland Funeral Chapel

Gwen Sue Grimke passed away on November 12, 2024, in Davis California, after an extended period of declining health. Gwen was born on October 31, 1946 to Paul Griffin and Bonnie Lee Bell Griffin in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She loved growing up near the National Laboratory and exploring the woods behind her home, but was eager to head off to college in North Carolina as an art major, where she immediately joined the Civil Rights movement and spent much of her time at demonstrations and sit-ins. She worked for the Southern Student Organizing Committee to organize white students against racism in Raleigh in 1968. Gwen became a lifelong advocate for diversity and equal rights. When she moved to California in 1970 and Alaska (1988-2001), she continued this passion for civil rights and women’s rights. She attended University of North Carolina, Greensboro and graduated from the Cal State Los Angeles registered nursing program (1973) and the UC San Francisco Certified Nurse Midwifery program (1981). Gwen was most proud of having delivered thousands of babies in her life-time career as a labor and delivery nurse at UCLA Health Center and later as a midwife (CNM). She helped hundreds of babies join the world and empowered countless women through natural childbirth as a midwife in the Napa Valley and Anchorage, Alaska. She reached a few life-long dreams: running her own birth center and midwifery business, Midnight Sun Midwifery, and even delivering her own granddaughter, Caelen Grimke McQuilkin, in 2001. At different times in her career, she worked as a nurse practitioner for Planned Parenthood, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Alaska, and as a hospice nurse. She loved camping, reading, dancing, Giants baseball, and Australian cattle dogs, as well as doting on her grandchildren. Gwen is survived by her husband Stephen Weber, brothers David and Ed Griffin, sister Mary Lugo, daughter Sarah Grimke Taylor (Geoff McQuilkin), stepchildren Erik and Kristina Weber, and granddaughters Caelen, Ellery, Cassia, and Natascha. Services in Woodland will be: at 10 am on Saturday, January 4, 2025, the United Methodist Church, 212 2nd Street. For those wishing to make a donation, the family suggests Planned Parenthood or YoloCares hospice.

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Gwen Grimke Obituary | Woodland Funeral Chapel