Winifred Irene Ravenscroft

    Winifred Irene (Gilson) Ravenscroft, 97, died on July 13th, 2024 at Accura Healthcare in Spirit Lake Iowa. She was born on August 10, 1926 at the Welsh Presbyterian Mission Hospital in Shillong, Assam India to the Reverend Frederick Leroy and Hazel May (Minott) Gilson. Nowgong, Assam was their home through 1929. From 1930 to 1936 the family, now including “Winnie’s” brother, Clifford, lived in Missoula, Montana. Grand Island, Nebraska was their home from 1936 to 1943. In 1943 the family moved to Fresno, California.

    Winnie attended the public schools of Missoula, Grand Island and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Fresno. Her further education included attendance at Fresno State College, graduation from the University of Redlands in 1948. She received her MSW from the University of Nebraska in 1952. Following college graduation, she was employed from 1948 to 1951 by Fresno County Welfare Department as social services and child welfare worker. During this time, she completed her first year of graduate school.

    On June 28, 1952 Winifred and Calvin Merle Ravenscroft of Kennedy, Cherry County, Nebraska were married at the First Baptist Church of Grand Island, Nebraska. They are the parents of one son, Ted Robert Ravenscroft.

    From 1952 to 1959 Winnie was employed by Family and Child Service of Omaha as a therapist, supervisor and student field instructor. An employment hiatus of seven years followed as the family moved from Omaha to Spencer, IA in 1961, to Laramie, Wyoming in 1963, returning to Spencer in 1966. At that time, she began employment as a therapist at the Northwest Iowa Mental Health Center until 1984. From 1990 until 2006, she was a very part time consultant in social work at Spencer Psychiatry.

    From her childhood on, Winnie sustained a concern for social justice, civil liberties, equality. She was a firm believer in the separation of church and state. She found expression of these values in her life work and her organization affiliations. Until she moved to Spencer in 1961 she was a member of American (formerly Northern) Baptist Churches in the cities where she lived. Later in life she became a member of the Iowa Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. For many years she was a member of the Clay County Democrats central committee and was always a supporter of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

    Among the activities Winnie enjoyed most were both thoughtful discussion and lively conversation. She did love to tell stories. Birdwatching, reading, photography, writing, family history were joys for her. She also enjoyed her years of membership in AAUW. Driving the byways on North American with Cal, her husband, and Ted, their son (when he was still at home) was a delight through the years.

    Preceding her in death were her parents, Fred and Hazel Gilson and her brother, Clifford Minott Gilson, husband Calvin. 

    Surviving are her son, Ted Robert Ravenscroft and his wife, Brenda Parks Ravenscroft, grandchildren: Tyler James Ravenscroft and his wife, Alex Budler Ravenscroft and Alicia Ravenscroft Nanez; great grandchildren: Kiley and Elsie Nanez; sister-in-law, Rosemary Farnum Gilson (Clifford) and twenty-nine beloved Gilson and Ravenscroft nieces and nephews.