Gretchen Quie Obituary Gretchen Quie, 88, passed away at home on December 13, 2015. The wife of former governor Al Quie, she died after a long struggle with Parkinsons. Gretchen Marie Hansen was born in Waverly, Iowa, on August 4, 1927, to Sam and Ella Hansen. Her father was a school administrator, and the family moved to Harmony and then Benson, Minnesota, before moving to Minneapolis, where Sam established a teacher-placement business. Ella was a librarian for Lutheran Brotherhood. Gretchen graduated from Central High School in 1945 and then attended St. Olaf College. A talented artist, she studied with Arnold Flaten at St. Olaf and spent one summer as a student at the Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She did not graduate then, because she met a young former Navy pilot, Al Quie, who had enrolled at St. Olaf after World War II. Gretchen and Al were married in June 1948. With Al, she moved to the Rice County farm between Dennison and Nerstrand where he had been raised, and she learned to do the many tasks required of a farmers wife. As she would do throughout her life, Gretchen was active in a number of organizations, including Grace Lutheran Church in Nerstrand and the Dennison Study Club. The couple had four children (Fredric, Jennifer, Daniel, and Joel) before Al was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1958. The family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where their fifth child (Benjamin) was born. Al represented Minnesotas First District in Congress for more than twenty years. During those years in Silver Spring, Gretchen raised five children, was active at St. Stephens Lutheran Church, where she designed and helped members install several prominent pieces of sacred art. In 1970, she also began taking courses at the University of Maryland, transferring them for credit to St. Olaf so that, after spending the 1970 summer-school session on the college campus, she graduated from St. Olaf as an art major in 1971. Her senior project at St. Olaf was a series of installations for St. Stephens Lutheran, which still adorn the church. Gretchen, Al, and their youngest son, Ben, moved into Minnesotas Governors Residence at 1006 Summit Avenue in early 1979, after Al was elected Governor in November 1978. Encouraged by Gretchen, Governor Quie was the first Minnesota governor to fill one-third of all appointment positions of state committees, commissions and councils with women; First Lady Quie hosted a reception for the sixty-seven newly appointed women Gretchen threw herself into her new responsibilities as Minnesotas First Lady. To assist with needed repairs to the Residence, she formed the State Ceremonial Building Council, which was authorized by the Legislature in 1980 to create an architectural master plan to guide future alterations to the residence. Gretchen edited a compilation of historical anecdotes and favorite recipes of past Minnesota governors, published as The Governors Table in 1981 by The 1006 Summit Avenue Society, which she formed as a volunteer organization to support the care and maintenance of the Governors Residence. Knowing that the property belonged the people of Minnesota, and yet few citizens had the opportunity to visit the place, she initiated a popular program called, "Night at the Mansion," in which she and her staff organized simple lotteries whereby applicants in various arbitrary categories (e.g., a couple whose phone number ends in 3, siblings who are both teachers, someone over 50 who has never left the state, etc.) might be chosen to share dinner with the Governor and First Lady in the Residences dining room and then stay the night in the Residences guest bedrooms. The Quies also invited a Vietnamese refugee family to live in the renovated Carriage House at the Governor's Residence, to encourage more Minnesotans to sponsor refugees. While serving as First Lady, Gretchen also wrote an autobiography entitled In the Potter's Hand (Augsburg Fortress Publishing, 1981). Soon after Al retired from elected office in 1983, he and Gretchen moved to Minnetonka, where she continued an active life as an artist and as a member of Minnetonka Lutheran Church. With a business partner, she opened Celebration Design, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, which became a nexis for ecclesiastical art: congregations looking for artistic furnishings for their churches could find artists producing such works, and artists making fine ecclesiastical art could find a market for their work. Throughout her life, Gretchen was active in volunteer and other organizations in addition to her work in the church. In Maryland, she did volunteer work at a nursing home, delivered Meals on Wheels, taught painting and arts-and-crafts classes, was president of the Montgomery Potters, and participated in several congressional wives clubs. In Minnesota she served on the councils of many state organizations including the Girl Scout Council, Nutrition Education and Advisory Council, Committee on Immunization, American Refugee Council, Board of Society of Fine Arts, Salvation Army Council, KIDS Inc., World Population Balance, and Art Education of Minnesota, and she volunteered at the ICA Food Shelf in Minnetonka. Shortly before Gretchen received her Parkinsons diagnosis in 2005, she retired from making art herself. Since then, Al has been her devoted primary caregiver. Gretchen is survived by her husband, Al Quie; her brother, John (Caryl) Hansen of Eden Prairie; five children, Fred (Melinda) Quivik of Houghton, Michigan, Jennie (Dave) Coffin of Fairfax, Virginia, Dan (Luanne) Quie of Greenfield, Joel (Sarah) Quie of Eden Prairie, and Ben (Virginia) Quie of St. Paul; as well as fourteen grandchildren, thirteen great-grandchildren, and in-laws, nieces and nephews, and many friends and relatives.Visitation Thursday December 17, from 4-7 PM at David Lee Funeral Home in Wayzata, 1220 E Wayzata Blvd. Funeral service will be held Friday December 18, 11 AM at Christ Presbyterian Church, 6901 Normandale Road in Edina with visitation starting at 10 AM.