Jean Stiver Griswold

Jean Griswold built a life around a simple idea: people flourish when they are seen, welcomed, and invited into one another’s lives. Raised in Pasadena, California, in a family and church that prioritized service, Jean developed an interest in becoming a global citizen at an early age.

As a 17-year-old high school youth leader in her Congregational Church, she traveled solo to Mexico City as a volunteer ambassador to a youth conference, opening her eyes to international work.

She decided to enroll in Occidental College to become a teacher and flourished as a student, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors in academics, being elected Homecoming Queen by her classmates, and leading the student church, where she met her future husband, Bill.

The summer after her junior year in college (1950), she again traveled alone to volunteer at a work camp in Switzerland and visited central European cities, where she represented her hometown of Pasadena in sister city connections to support those rebuilding from World War II.

Jean earned an education degree at Occidental College in 1951, and upon graduation, felt the urge to teach internationally. She received an offer from the Congregational Church to teach English at a school in rural Turkey. Upon hearing her plan to go to Turkey, when asked by Jean if he wanted to go along, Bill famously replied, “I’ll go anywhere in the world with you!” That decision was the start of a marriage that lasted 74 years and Bill’s career studying Middle Eastern history.

As missionary teachers, Jean and Bill taught at an American school for Turkish boys, deepening her commitment to international education, and where she and Bill celebrated the birth of their first child, Jim, born in Istanbul.

After returning to the USA, they lived on the UCLA campus, where Jean supported Bill’s PhD in Middle East Studies and had two more children, Ruth and David. They returned to Istanbul, Turkey two more years for graduate research.

In 1965, they received a job offer from a town they had never heard of, Fort Collins, from the History Department at Colorado State University. Jean expected it would be a short hiatus away from family and friends in Pasadena. But quickly she and the Griswold family fell in love with Fort Collins, and it became their permanent home.

Jean immediately set about finding a way to help bridge the Fort Collins community to the international students and families who studied at CSU. She coordinated a “Loan Closet,” where donations of household goods helped new international families begin their stay in Fort Collins. She also provided English-language support to refugee and immigrant children in the Poudre School District and earned her master’s degree in English as a Second Language (ESL) at CSU.

After a decade of volunteer work in the 1970s, she began working full-time with the CSU International Program in the early 1980s, culminating in her role as Director of International Student Services. She helped create CSU’s International Week: a week-long festival dedicated to promoting a deeper understanding of the world’s cultures. It allowed visiting international student groups to showcase their culture to the Fort Collins community. She helped create “Day in the Mountains,” a fall workshop in the Rocky Mountains, to foster cross-cultural connections for the hundreds of visiting international CSU students, and help them better understand American culture.

Jean was also one of the first three women admitted to the Fort Collins Rotary Club and later received “The Quiet Rotarian Award” in 2016 for her pioneering leadership to support community and international engagement.

Jean loved to make people feel welcome and ensured everyone experienced her warm hospitality.

Beginning in 1975, she and Bill found a way to bring people together from all cultures and religions as they began their Sunday Waffle Breakfast. This gathering became a CSU and Fort Collins legend, lasting nearly 50 years. Every Sunday at 8 a.m. at the Griswold home two or three dozen waffle “regulars” would come together to make waffles, share stories, and celebrate life’s milestones with a toast of “ceremonial” champagne. The breakfast would still be held even when Jean and Bill were out of the country for months on one of their five voyages working on the Semester at Sea program. The breakfast was something everyone could count on as a place where long-term relationships were built among a diverse group of friends.

In her retirement, Jean loved spending time with family, old friends, and newcomers alike. She brought happiness and curiosity to every conversation. She had an infectious laugh and a joyous smile. She always found a way to accentuate the positive in life. Whether advising students, convening volunteers, or welcoming a new arrival to Fort Collins to the Sunday breakfast with a waffle, Jean Griswold had the special ability to make everyone feel: “You belong here.”

Survivors include her husband of 74 years, Bill, her three children, Jim, Ruth, and David, five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

Jean's Memorial Service will be held Saturday, October 11, 2025 from 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. at Lory Student Center, Ballroom-350 D, Colorado State University.

The event will also be live-streamed at:

www.youtube.com/@JeanGriswoldMemorial.

In Jean’s memory, donations may be made to support the William and Jean Griswold Scholarship at Colorado State University. Go to the CSU giving site online at: col.st/YLmkX or mail checks to the CSU Foundation (P.O. Box 1870, Fort Collins, CO 80522-1870) with “in support of William and Jean Griswold” in the memo line.