Marjorie Irene Munson Wunder's commitment to peace and justice came from her deeply held Christian faith.
But it was the teachings of the late religious figure and longtime peace activist William Sloane Coffin in the 1980s that motivated and inspired Wunder, then a stay-at-home mother of three, to act.
She was arrested numerous times for civil disobedience in her attempt to bring attention to the dangers of ongoing wars and the production of nuclear weapons and cluster bombs.
Wunder, whose upbeat energy and tireless commitment to peace activism encouraged other women to speak out, died of heart disease on Oct. 1 at the Minnesota Masonic Home in Bloomington, said her daughter, Holly Wunder Stiles of Sacramento, Calif. Wunder was 90.
"My mother really found joy in life and she found joy in people," Stiles said.
Wunder was born and raised in Monmouth, Ill. She earned a bachelor's degree from Monmouth College in 1953, where she served on the alumni board for several years and met her husband, Hollis Wunder. They married in 1954 and the couple moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where they had three children together. A decade later, the Wunders made Minneapolis their home.
Wunder supported the peace movement in a variety of ways. She was "a proud recidivist" in the Honeywell project and was also an active member of Women Against Military Madness. In the early 1980s, Wunder and five of her friends, who were concerned about the ongoing wars and the dangers of nuclear weapons, founded Grandmothers for Peace, an Edina-based nonprofit that still meets regularly to talk about issues including health care, gun control and women's rights.
Despite her small stature, Wunder held a commanding voice on the streets during protests, at the Legislature when warning about the dangers of wars and at small gatherings.
