Alice Malde Brookings

March 1, 1922 – June 9, 2017

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Alice Malde, 95, of Brookings,  died Friday, June 9, 2017, at the United Living Community in Brookings. 

Services are at 10:30  a.m. Friday at the Gracepoint Wesleyan Church in Brookings.  Burial is at at 3 p.m. at the Mt. Vernon Cemetery in Mt. Vernon.  Visitation is 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday  at Eidsness Funeral Home.  Alice Lovdahl Malde, the daughter of Knut and Alice (Sorensen) Lovdahl was born on March 1, 1922, in Milwaukee.  She was the fourth of six children. Her father died when she was 8 years old and her mother died when she was 18.  She and her older brothers kept the family together by helping to finish raising their 10 and 12 year old siblings.  

On Nov. 29, 1947, she  married Lloyd Malde, and they moved 600 miles from her Milwaukee family to a farm in Mt Vernon to start a new life.  They raised three daughters.  Lloyd died in 1988.

She loved people and had the gift of hospitality, always ready to put the coffee pot on or share a meal, having Bible studies in her home, telling childhood stories, setting a pretty table with candles for company, knitting baby booties until she was 94, holding babies in the church nursery in her 80s, writing letters, voting in the next election, talking and laughing with the Tuesday lunch ladies, and spending time with family.  Interaction with people always energized her.

In 2005, she moved to Brookings to be closer to her daughters and lived 10 years at Sunchase, loving her apartment, still able to have people over for coffee or a meal. She moved to ULC in 2015.

Her story is a testimony of God's wonderful faithfulness. She trusted him through some very difficult times and came through those times with courage, humor and love.  

She taught us: don't feel sorry for yourself, get your mind off yourself by doing good things for others, count your blessings and be thankful. Even in her last days, she would pray for others and look for ways to show God's love and ask forgiveness if she felt she had wronged someone.  We are blessed and thankful for her life.

Alice is survived by: daughters: Judy (Del) Johnson, Jeanne (Denny) VanDyke, Lois (Darrell) Olson; eight grandchildren; two step-grandsons; 13 great-grandchildren: six step-great-grandchildren many nieces and nephews; and an honorary grandson.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Lloyd, and all of his siblings and their spouses, Alice's siblings and their spouses, as well as a son-in-law: Rick Jones.