On June 19, 2020, Muriel White Stehouwer passed peacefully into the presence of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Born Muriel Lydia Hunt on July 8, 1930, in Detroit, she was the older of two children of typical Irish/German immigrants who scraped together a living in the Depression era. She attended Wayne State University and met Robert White, also of Detroit, through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a ministry she supported throughout her life. Both were dedicated Christians who felt a calling to missionary service.
Muriel graduated in 1952 with a B.A. in English and married Robert the same year. After he completed medical school at Case Western University in Cleveland, where she taught English in a public school and bore her first child, they left the United States in 1954 to prepare for medical missions in Panama and Belgium before spending 10 years in the Congo. She had children in each of these locations.
They returned to the United States in 1965. Following brief stints in Birmingham, where her youngest child was born, and Adrian, Michigan, she moved with her husband and six children to Marquette, Michigan, where she lived for 13 years. There she was active in the Marquette Missionary Church, taught English at Northern Michigan University, and was instrumental in founding Pregnancy Services of Marquette, an institution dedicated to helping women find alternatives to abortion.
Her first husband died in 1982, and just over a year later she married Dr. Edward Stehouwer, also recently widowed, of Cadillac, Michigan. She was a faithful member of the Cadillac Christian Reformed Church and a longtime member of the Cadillac Community Orchestra. She invested her boundless energy in countless civic and church-related activities. She remained in Cadillac after the death of her second husband in 2010.
She will be remembered by literally hundreds of people in many countries as a faithful friend, trusted counselor, and dedicated follower of Jesus Christ. She reveled above all in her role as wife and mother and in serving in her church. She was preceded in death by her parents, one sister, and two husbands, who she felt were the best two men on the planet. She is survived by 4 sons living in Virginia, Scotland, Germany, and Kenya, respectively, 2 daughters in the San Francisco area, 3 stepchildren, 26 grandchildren, 7 step-grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-step-grandchildren, not to mention 30 nieces and nephews and their prolific progeny. She leaves behind a legacy of a life well-lived for God to all those privileged to call her Mom, Grandma/Oma, Aunt, or simply “my friend.”
A memorial service to celebrate the life of Muriel will be held at 10:00 AM on Monday, June 22, 2020, at the Cadillac Christian Reformed Church in Cadillac with the Reverend Jeff Kroondyk officiating. Muriel’s final resting place will be the White Family Cemetery near Big Bay, Michigan.
In lieu of flowers, people are encouraged to donate memorial gifts in Muriel’s honor to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (intervarsity.org) or the Csehy Summer School of Music (csehy.org).