Grace Eileen Johnson, born on May 20, 1913 to Grace A. and William E. McRandle Sr. in Bessemer, Michigan. Grace Eileen was a beloved daughter, a loving mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother. She passed away on June 29, 2010 at the North Shore Care Center in Grand Marais, MN.
Grace Eileen lived in Bessemer, MI until her family moved to Duluth, where she became highly active in Girl Scouting and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. Grace attended and graduated from the Holy Rosary Catholic School, Central High School, and continued her education at the Duluth Teacher’s College.
After attending student training, Grace Eileen continued to teach and moved to Cotton, Hovland, and then Jacobsen, MN. In all three towns, she taught in a one-room schoolhouse. While living in Hovland, Grace Eileen met her first husband Edwin B. Eliasen and they were married in 1938. Grace Eileen and Edwin had four sons before Edwin passed away in 1944.
In 1945 she moved with her sons to Grand Marais, where she met and married Donald E. Johnson in 1946 and together they had six more children.
After working several jobs in the area, Grace Eileen began work at the Cook County North Shore Hospital in the housekeeping department. When there was an opening for a nurse’s aide she took the job and began working nightshift before she became an LPN. Grace Eileen continued working night shift at the hospital until she retired.
Together Donald and Grace traveled to Texas every winter with side trips to Arizona, Washington and states in between. When Donald died in 1984 she went back to work in Grand Marais and soon returned to her nursing career at the North Shore Care Center until she suffered a stroke at the age of 80 and had to retire.
Grace Eileen was preceded in death by her parents William and Grace McRandle; her two brothers William McRandle Jr. and James McRandle; husbands Edwin B. Eliasen and Donald E. Johnson; her daughter-in-law Glenda (Joynes) Eliasen and twin granddaughters Brenda Jo and Adonica Renae Johnson.
She is survived by nine sons – Lawrence (and Dorothy) Eliasen, Grand Marais, David Eliasen, Grand Marais, Richard Eliasen, Cloquet, Tom (and Honey) Eliasen, Grand Marais, Fran (and Jo) Johnson, Lutsen, Charles “Chuck” Johnson, Glendale, Arizona, James (and Ann) Johnson, New Brighton MN, William (and Connie) Johnson, Peoria, Arizona, Robert (Mary Ann) Johnson, Two Harbors, and daughter Mary (and Greg) Olson, Grand Marais.
She is also survived by 21 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.
Services will be held at St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais on August 6, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Memorial donations can be made to the North Shore Care Center activities program.
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