Alice Marie Tornow

Alice Marie (Webb) Tornow, 102, mother of Joyce Dick of Collegedale, died at Memorial Hospital early on December 8, 2015. She will be buried beside her husband, Frank Tornow, in Murdo, South Dakota.

Alice never acted her age. At 102 she loved Facebook, racked up winning Scrabble scores, taught young children to play Skipbo and Dominoes, insisted on washing the dishes and sweeping the deck pushing a broom in front of her Jazzy, kept up with the latest political news, shared appropriate (usually) jokes to fit every occasion, and remembered details of events her family had long forgotten.

Alice was born on July 20, 1913, in Dooley, Montana, in a tent in a railroad construction camp. When the camp closed, she moved with her parents, John Webb and Maude Murphy Webb, to the family farm near Murdo. With six children, money was tight. Alice was milking cows by the time she was five years old and caring for the younger children, rarely having a chance to act like a child herself. She rode horseback five miles to the one-room West Highland School for eight years. Then, she worked one year for a family in town for room and board, so she could attend Murdo High School. The next year, she drove to school in a crank-up Model T Ford, but had to stay home second semester when her dad needed her on the farm.

At 16, Alice married 24-year-old Frank Tornow. It was 1930, the start of the Depression. Their first home was a tarpaper shack on the cattle ranch where Frank worked. .His brother, Ted, and two hired men lived with them. Alice baked all their bread, cooked the meals, made soap to wash their clothes, often on a washboard, and struggled to keep dust and locusts out of the house during the Dust Bowl days. Later, Frank and Ted farmed some and did custom combining with the first combine in Jones County.

In 1935, Alice and Frank moved to Murdo. Frank drove a truck for a farm implement company for a few years and then bought his first truck to start Sparkey's Transfer, a business he operated for many years with the help of his sons. Alice was the Murdo city assessor for several years in the 1940's and 1950's and served as court bailiff when needed.

The Tornows had four children: LaVern ("Lee") (1931), Joyce (1935), Larry (1939), and Mary (1943). By the time of her death, Alice had 16 grandchildren, 41 great-grandchildren, more than 30 great-great-grandchildren, and one great-great-great-granddaughter, named Kylee.

In 1955, Frank and Alice purchased a half-interest in the 28-room Murdo Hotel and became its managers and, later, full owners. After Frank died in 1970, Alice continued operating the hotel. To help make ends meet, she took in long-term boarders and sold tickets for the Jackrabbit Bus Line that made its Murdo stop at the hotel.

After selling the hotel in 1978, Alice lived in an apartment in town, when she was not traveling to visit family all over the country. She went deep sea fishing in Oregon with Larry, cruised to the Bahamas and went tubing in Lake Powell with Joyce, road tripped to Montana with Mary, and toured Coronado Island, California, with Lee. She began spending several months each winter with Joyce in Collegedale, and moved there permanently in 2000. She loved volunteering at Memorial Hospital, where Joyce worked in public relations. Coworkers called Alice "Mom" or "Grandma T."

A master baker of bread, sweet rolls, pies, and cakes, Alice liked to say she was best known for her "buns." She won several prizes for her baked goods at the Jones County Fair and at the Hamilton County Fair after her move to Tennessee. She played the piano, as she said, "for my own amazement."

Alice walked and talked daily with God. Knowing we were on Grandma T's ever-growing prayer list comforted many of us. She was a Seventh-day Adventist for most of her life. With no SDA church in Murdo, she attended the United Methodist Church there, where she was a member of the UMC Women for more than 50 years. She was also a charter member of the Seniors for Service Club and the Progressive Study Club.

Her family and friends were the highlight of Alice’s life. She loved cooking and caring for them, talking on the phone or through email or Facebook, and playing games, from Hand and Foot to Rack-o. She helped care for several of her grandchildren in babyhood and wrote family and friends hundreds of letters and birthday cards, often closing with "God bless you real good." She made friends wherever she went, from the Schwann's door-to-door salesman to the nurses she befriended in her last hours. She saw and loved people through God's eyes.

We all felt God blessed us with her for 102 years because He knew just how many people needed her and how much she had to teach us. In the face of death, we often make saints of sinners, but she was the sort of person who needs no gilding of memory. She stands remembered perfectly, her soft hands outstretched for anyone who needed them.

So many things we will miss: her humor, her jokes, her memories and stories, her many gentle ways of always making us feel loved. She went quietly, the way she wanted to. She was ready, walking out of life as gracefully as she walked through it.

Losing her is like walking into the house to find the rocking chair missing from the middle of the room—the one that was always there to welcome with loving arms the hurting, the weary, the broken, the loved. But the blessing of her life burns brightly in our memories and always will.

Final arrangements through Chattanooga Funeral Home, Crematory & Florist-Valley View Chapel, 7414 Old Lee Highway. To share your memories and thoughts with the family, please visit: http://www.dignitymemorial.com/chattanooga-funeral-home-valleyview-chapel, or visit: ChattanoogaValleyViewChapel.com. You may post on Facebook under “Alice Tornow.”

Alice's love for the healing touch of nature, the gift of socializing, and for volunteering will be commemorated with a bench in one of the gardens at Memorial Hospital. Gifts in her memory may be sent to the Memorial Foundation, 2525 de Sales Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37404, to Joyce Dick, P.O. Box 556, Collegedale, TN 37315, or to Mary Noldner, 1401 South Main Street, Mitchell, SD 57301. Or donate to the charity of your choice.

Two Memorial Service are being held. On Saturday, January 9, 2016, at 5pm, members of her family will meet and eat with friends in the Fellowship Hall of the Collegedale Seventh-day Adventist Church. On Saturday, June 4, 2016, at 3pm, graveside services will be held in Murdo, South Dakota, where Alice will be buried beside her husband. Family and friends are invited to meet and eat following the service at the Methodist Church in Murdo.

Left to mourn Alice's passing are three of her children, Joyce (Don, deceased) Dick, of Collegedale, TN; Larry (Susan) Tornow of Garibaldi, OR; and Mary (Gaylen, deceased) Noldner, and dozens of their descendants all over the country. We love you, Grandma T!