Grace has no memories prior to Sam rescuing her from a Boston fire in the late 1970s. He got her name from a piece of paper he found in her pocket. They married soon after, and he brought her home to Harmony, to live in the house where he grew up. Over the years they had three children, and Grace helped Sam raise his much younger brother Hank. Grace and Sam looked for her family, but after the births of their children, Grace decided that she didn't need to know her past. That worked until after their oldest, Noah, left home for university. Grace started wondering about her family, so Sam started using the Internet to search for them. He found a woman, 'Seeker', in a chat room, and managed to realise that she was a member of Grace's family. Grace was thrilled to learn that her twin sister could be so close...closer than she thought. She didn't realise that her own children had met her niece, Charity, and that her daughter, Kay, was keeping the two apart in the hopes that Charity and Faith would leave, and she would get Miguel.

Grace and Faith managed to connect once, via their computers, but then the unthinkable happened...Faith was the victim in a fire set by an ancient enemy of the Standish family (the Bennetts next door neighbor, Tabitha). Her twin sister was dead, but Grace had something to hold on to...her niece, Charity. Once Charity was out of the hospital, Grace and Sam moved her into the Bennett home. Grace soon realised that, like her, Charity has something special about her. While Grace received visits from a little angel girl, Charity had premonitions. She never realised that her premonitions were warning her about a new friend of hers, Ivy Winthrop Crane.

For nearly two years, Grace believed that Ivy was a good friend of hers, because Ivy made her believe that. At no time did Grace ever suspect that Ivy was merely pretending to be her friend to break up her marriage. She began having nightmares about a woman who wanted to take Sam away from her, and even had Sam's son. Her worst nightmares ever came true the night of Ethan and Theresa's engagement party...not only did she learn that Sam had committed adultery with Ivy (before he met Grace), but Ethan Winthrop was Sam's son! In a dead faint, she fell down the stairs of the Crane mansion, and woke up in the hospital fighting for her life, and that of her unborn son [the child the doctors had told her it was impossible to conceive]. Her mental condition was fragile at best, and seeing Sam and Ivy in a compromising condition was the last straw...Grace lost the baby, and blamed Sam for it.

It took Grace hours to convince Sam to take her home, and when they got there, they found out that Charity had been seized by the denizens of Hell. Grace blamed Sam for that as well, because she knew something was wrong and he wouldn't take her home. Her anger didn't last long though...after hearing Sam once again blast Ivy for her selfishness and tell Ivy how much he loved his wife, Grace, she forgave him...until she found out he knew she was there the whole time.

Sam and Grace finally settled things between them, until a man named David Hastings came to town, claiming to be Grace's long-lost husband!