Grace Straukas

Grace Straukas, a wonderful mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend, passed away on February 2, 2019. She was born in September 1940 in Taurage, Lithuania, to the late Antanas and Marta Grigalavicius. She was just an infant when her family fled to Germany to escape the Soviet annexation of Lithuania during World War II. After living in a displaced persons camp in Germany for several years, the family immigrated to a Lithuanian neighborhood in the Marquette Park area of Chicago, Illinois, where Grace graduated from Maria High School. She married Charles Straukas in 1960, and the couple and their two children relocated to Geneva, Florida in 1967. Grace became the smiling face behind the counter of Geneva Grocery, the small-town general store and gas station the couple owned and operated until moving to North Florida in 1974. A few years later, Grace earned her paralegal degree and worked as a legal secretary until her death.

Grace loved to travel. Ignoring the disapproval of her children’s teachers, she pulled her son and daughter out of elementary school for a family six-week, ten-country trip around the world. Years later, she took her own six-week sabbatical and took off for Mexico – without an itinerary. She traveled to other locations throughout the U.S., including several trips to Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, places with which she felt a special communion.

Grace’s free spirit was also expressed through her endless creativity. The arts and crafts she engaged in over the years included drawing, painting, ceramics, stained glass, sewing, macramé, jewelry making, glass blowing, needlepoint, knitting, crocheting and quilting. With great enthusiasm, she often would recruit family members and friends to join in her latest creative endeavor. She also was a voracious reader who believed a day spent reading was a day well spent.

Perhaps the most endearing quality Grace possessed was her warm and engaging manner. She had the wonderful ability to make someone feel special, and her genuine interest in and empathy for others led people to share themselves freely, sensing love and acceptance. She was so sociable she could make a waiter, a store clerk, a cashier, even a nurse at the hospital an immediate friend.

Grace is survived by her two children, Tony Straukas and Sandra (Matt) Hendricks; two grandsons, Erik Schlusemeyer and Jude Hendricks; her great-granddaughter and namesake, Gracelyn Schlusemeyer; her brother, Tony (Dalia) Grigas; and her like-a-daughter friend, Diane (Mike) Gaff.

A celebration of Grace’s life will be held on Sunday, February 10, at 2p.m. at Eastside Community Church, 13301 Beach Boulevard. Memorial donations can be made to Community Hospice, 4266 Sunbeam Road, 32257; or First Coast No More Homeless Pets, 6817 Norwood Avenue, 32208.

Arrangements by Neptune Society-Jacksonville (904) 733-4510.