Marlene Graybar
Marlene was born December 9, 1932 in Durand, Wisconsin to Earl and Alwilda Dudrey. She had one older brother, Charles, a younger sister, Shirley Larson and a younger brother Ron.
Her father was raised Seventh Day Adventist, her mother was Methodist and because of this difference of religious beliefs there was discord in the family and very little Bible training or church attendance. It was the deepest part of the Depression and there was very little money for even bare necessities and work was hard to find. Family life was full of physical, verbal and other forms of abuse.
Marlene lived in the Durand area until the start of World War II in 1941 when her family moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, where her father and mother found work. After living three years in Saint Paul they moved out into the country by a lake eleven miles east of Saint Paul. Marlene lived there, with her family for one year. During her high school years she lived in Saint Paul, working for various families for her room and board, rented an apartment the month she turned sixteen and worked at other jobs to support herself while attending high school. She graduated from Harding High School in 1950.
Marlene became a Christian at the age of eighteen at Temple Baptist Church in Saint Paul. However, it was many years before she actually grasped the fact that Jesus needed to be Lord as well as Savior.
Marlene married an unbeliever in 1951. The marriage ended after fifteen years of physical and verbal abuse as well as alcohol and drug use. Her husband died less than three months after the divorce. Marlene has six children; four sons and two daughters.
Marlene has worked twelve years as an Executive Secretary to Vice President and Corporate Contracts Counsel at Control Data Corporation in Bloomington and seventeen years as Secretary to the Superintendent of Schools in Hoffman and West Central Area School. She retired in November 1997 and has lived in Hoffman (in a converted church building) since she moved there with her two youngest sons in 1981. Marlene has been part of Caravan Fellowship for about ten years.