Grace Salome Byler

Grace Byler died peacefully in her home on Monday, October 13, 2025, in Lancaster, PA. She was 85. A fierce champion of peace and reconciliation, Grace affected countless lives. This started with her family, but did not stop there. At age fifteen, her father died in a tragic accident, and, with her mother already indefinitely bedridden and sick, she became the surrogate mother for her three younger siblings. Grace married young, at nineteen, and shortly after was teaching grades 1-4 in a two-room Mennonite schoolhouse in Denver, PA, near the place of her birth. Not long after graduating from Lancaster Mennonite High School, where Grace was the first Soprano in the choir and played the piano, she attended Eastern Mennonite College. She quit after one year to work and support her husband in his pursuit of an undergrad and law degrees, and to tend to their two young children in Harrisonburg, VA. After her eventual separation from her husband, Grace lobbied the Pennsylvania House of Representatives relentlessly for legislation that would finally succeed. It included equitable distribution of property rights in divorces for spouses of men or women who had stayed at home and primarily cared for their children. From 1989 to 2004, Grace was executive director at the Lancaster Mediation Center where she mediated domestic, corporate, community, and victim-offender disputes. Grace became a coveted speaker for keynotes on the topic of mediation and reconciliation all over the country. Grace loved children. She was president of the board at the Lancaster Day Care center for two years. She served as president of the board for the Lancaster Council of Churches, was a founding member of Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, and was selected as an honoree by Leadership Lancaster. Immediately after retiring, she took a volunteer position with Corrymeela, an organization that mediates conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. She lived in Ireland for a year and met the Dalai Lama there. Grace was a surrogate mother to a Soweto-born South African teen who had been displaced from school for protesting Apartheid there. She supported and housed him for fifteen years during his time in the US and visited him upon his eventual return to Johannesburg. Grace was a lover of birds. She had a particular affinity for owls—which she appreciated as symbolic wisdom creatures—and had a collection of hundreds of them in her home. Grace was always welcoming people into her life. She cooked, joked, laughed, sang, encouraged, and listened with a playfulness that those who knew her will not forget. Grace Byler is survived by, among countless friends and people she influenced, three sons: Marcus Elvin Byler III, William Bryan Byler, Stephen Raleigh Byler; a daughter-in-law Lieke van Huystee-Byler (spouse of Bryan); four grandchildren: Jacqueline S. Lewis, married to Ian Lewis; Katarina A. Clay married to Michael Clay, J. Elizabeth Byler friend to Matt Gavin; William B. Byler husband to Kirsten Byler; and five great-grandchildren: Jocelyn, Charlotte, Theodora, Goldie, Wyatt; and four sisters: Eunice Lehman, Lois Weaver, Mary Louise Hostetter, and Sharon Stoltzfus. She is preceded in death by her father, Luke Auker Hurst, mother, Sallye Magdeline Rhodes Hurst Gross; and brothers: Luke Rhodes Hurst, and Paul Rhodes Hurst. A Memorial Service will be held at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, 328 W. Orange Street, Lancaster, PA 17603, on Saturday, November 1, 2025, at 12:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, donations in Grace Byler’s name may be sent to the church at the same address.