Meet My Grandparents, Part Two

In my last post I introduced you to my mom's parents. This time I will introduce you to my dad's parents. My grandfather died before my parents ever married, so I never knew him. He was an iron worker and was killed on a construction site in Tennessee; my mother tells me it was the Ford building in Nashville. A few years before my Grandmother passed away (she died of Alzheimer's in 1992) she told me the story of how he died . Grandaddy was on the second story of the building, sitting on an I-beam. The crane operator was hoisting a new I-beam and swinging it into position. Unfortunately he did not lift his load high enough and it brushed my grandfather right off his perch. Grandma said he saw the beam coming and leaned over and wrapped his arms and legs around his beam, but it wasn't enough; he fell to the ground (concrete, not dirt) and broke his neck. My dad was in the Navy, stationed overseas at the time. He came home on emergency leave, and while he was in town, he married my mother (they had already become engaged before grandpa died).

Grandma was born Anna Mary Barrow, and she had a brother named Clyde. Anyone familiar with depression era gangsters might think, "Clyde Barrow, as in Bonnie & Clyde?" No, I'm happy to say. Grandma's brother was a Baptist preacher, but when he went to Chicago for a convention and signed into the hotel, half of the Chicago police department descended on the hotel, thinking they had done the world a favor and captured the notorious outlaw.
Anyhow, Grandma worked to support herself after Grandaddy died, and eventually retired from the IGA Supermarket (for you folks in Murray, it was the Southside IGA). Grandma loved kids and had pictures of family and friends all over her house; on the piano, on her secretary, on the coffee table, on the walls, on the mantle. And without fail she could look at a picture and tell you who was who and how they were related, if at all. Watching her slip into dementia and memory loss from the Alzheimer's was a tragic thing. I visited her about a month before she passed and she did not recognize any of us. It broke my heart; I had to step outside the nursing home and collect myself before I could tell her goodbye. Grandma was raised a Baptist, but for the love of her husband she joined his Church of Christ, and continued to attend regularly until her illness prevented it. I will also see her again one day, and I am looking forward to meeting the Grandfather I never knew.