After her husband's death, she was the plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against a NASA contractor which established a precedent for families of astronauts killed in service to receive compensation.

Grissom worked as a late-night telephone operator for Indiana Bell while her husband studied mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

[6] On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, along with fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White, died when an electrical fire engulfed the Apollo 1 command module during testing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

[7] Investigations concluded that the "most probable" cause of the fire was an electrical spark that set ablaze flammable insulation in the capsule, exacerbated by the pure oxygen atmosphere.

[1] In 1971 Grissom filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Apollo program's prime contractor, North American Rockwell.