Gretchen Heyn Porter passed away peacefully surrounded by family members on September 6th, 2024 in Campbell, California after valiantly coping with a debilitating adrenal disease for the second half of her life. Born in Chicago with an identical twin, Gretchen is the daughter of Jean and Bill Heyn, longtime residents of Lancaster who moved from Illinois when Gretchen was four.
Gretchen attended John Henry Neff Elementary School and Lancaster Country Day School before graduating from Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois receiving a B.S. degree in Sociology. Later, she earned her law degree at the Santa Barbara College of Law in California. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority and the Junior League, a nonprofit to support community volunteers.
Gretchen was a great lover of babies, children, and music. Working a summer job in a Lancaster social welfare office during her college years, she surprised her family when she brought home a months-old baby, born in the Lancaster County Prison, to care for until the baby’s placement could be determined in the next couple of days. Self-taught on the guitar, she sang folksongs to children at the Lancaster General Hospital and to inmates at a prison in West Chester County. She sang in harmony with her twin sister to guests at the Lancaster Host Resort, and, occasionally, for family and sorority social gatherings. After graduation, Gretchen worked in Washington, D.C. organizing trips for dignitaries visiting from other countries before marrying William Howard Porter, a medical student at Northwestern in 1969. They settled in California…