Rubilaw Ray Granade, age 95, died December 24, 2014, at John Knox Nursing Home, Montgomery, Alabama.
A memorial service will be held at First Baptist Church Stakley Chapel on Friday, January 2 at 1:00 p.m. with Dr. Dale Huff, Reverend Kenny Hoomes and Reverend Tom Randall officiating. Visitation for family and friends, in Stakley Parlor, will follow the memorial service.
Pre-deceased by her husband of 65 years, Dr. Sam Granade, she is survived by one son, Dr. Samuel Ray Granade (Deranda) of Arkadelphia, AR; two grandsons, Dr. Stephen Riley Granade of Madison, AL (Misty) and Dr. Samuel Andrew Granade II (Joy) of Overland Park, KS; and four great grandchildren, Eli, Liza, Sam, and Noah.
Mrs. Granade was graduated from Howard College (Samford University), Birmingham, AL and attended Judson College, Marion, AL and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY.
This bohemian soul enshrouded in the body of a Baptist pastor's wife thought of herself as part gypsy, for she loved travel and its introduction to exotic places and people. An indifferent cook and housekeeper, she loved all of the arts but especially music, theatre, literature, and painting. While the arts and the tenets of her faith fed her soul, her passions were supporting her husband's ministry to his parishioners, whether or not those in need belonged to whatever church he pastored, supporting Baptist missions worldwide, and supporting religious and secular education.
Her desire to be useful and her vision and organizational ability brought her to leadership in the Evergreen Study Club's drive to establish a public library there, to local and state Woman's Missionary Union, to over two decades of conferences for pastor's wives at Shocco Springs Conference Center, and to more than two decades teaching Sunday School at Montgomery First Baptist Church.
Her gifts of hospitality and of boundless optimism and her understanding that information about others' lives, plentiful and readily available to a pastor's wife, were calls to prayer and action rather than salacious tidbits to serve as currency in the social marketplace, powered the life of a consummate pastor's wife of her generation. Her ability to live life graciously and to put a wide range of people she encountered at their ease paved the way for her and her husband's effective service in the Lord's work.
In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to The Sam and Rubilaw Granade Memorial Scholarship Fund of The Baptist Foundation of AL, P. O. Box 241227, Montgomery, AL 36124 or the cause of Baptist missions.
Published in the Montgomery Advertiser on Dec. 31, 2014.