Mary Encinias looks at a photo display of her mother at St. Mary Parish in Elyria on Thursday. STEVE MANHEIM/CHRONICLE

For more than 30 years, Gertrude Wirscham did something many today would regard as foolhardy or downright dangerous.

Following the death of her husband John in 1964, Wirscham opened her 12th Street home in Elyria to people who came in as total strangers without a roof over their heads but who left knowing they had been cared for and about by a woman who believed in the basic goodness of others.

Over the years, she gave shelter, food and friendship to more than 100 homeless youths and adults.

She was never afraid of anyone, said Mary Encinias, Wirschams youngest daughter. She always said Love has no room for fear, perfect love casts out all fear.

Gertrude Wirscham, shown above, was a founder of the St. Mary Parish Hot Meals program.

Wirscham died Sunday at age 97 at the Elyria Wesleyan Village after a short illness.

Encinias joined family members and dozens of others in remembering Wirscham and her lifes work during a luncheon in the St. Mary Parish Hall following her funeral Thursday.

Born in Carlisle Township and raised in Elyria, Wirschams lifelong mission to devote herself to others was driven in part by the deep faith she developed in response to episodes in her life, such as the frightening intolerance she experienced as a girl when a cross was burned in the front yard of the familys farm some nine miles from St. Mary after a Catholic woman applied for a teaching post at the church school.

Her father was a member of the churchs school board who supported the teaching candidate despite the intimidation of the burning cross, which the family suspected was placed there by Ku Klux Klan members who had broadened their anti-black agenda to include Catholics, Jews and foreigners.

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Red blazer-clad crusader kept an open house, heart