My Dad's parents, Madeline and Alfred Eugene Griffith or "Griff" were very cool people. We called then Nonnie and Granddad. Nonnie and Granddad always lived in fancy apartments with ornate furniture and drove fancy big cars. They were always dressed up stylishly, Nonnie in her 70's polyester pantsuits with big jewelry and Granddad in slacks and a dress shirt. Nonnie wore beautiful silver wigs, lots of makeup and painted her long fingernails red. She modeled fur coats in her sixties for a high end department store. Grandad was short and bald with white hair around the edges and a white mustache. He wore fedora hats and smoked a pipe with half and half tobacco. We always ate a meal together and sat at the dining room table and ate out of serving bowls and had dessert.
Nonnie and Granddad met in Chicago where Nonnie was raised. Nonnie had been married before that and had Uncle Bob then the guy got violent so she divorced him and became a flapper in the early 20's. Grandad and Nonnie married and lived and worked at the YMCA in the early years and were ping pong champions in Chicago. Later, Grandad worked for a bank.
Nonnie was in charge and loved to be bossy and sassy. She was very loving to David and I but didn't have a good relationship with my Dad. She loved to move her furniture around which really meant standing there bossing all the men around.
My Grandad was quiet and really in charge but he let Nonnie think she was in charge. He was also very loving and liked to take me for walks. He told me stories of when he was little like when he had the hiccups for a year and when a roly poly crawled in his ear. He was always listening to the Royals on a transistor hand held radio and liked to eat weird food. He taught me to eat peanut butter and bologna sandwiches on toast to which he also added baked beans. He had some unique phrases that he would yell out occasionally. My memories of Grandad have become blurred over the years because Lee and he had a lot of similarities. I just remember Grandads kindness and strong presence in the room.
I never met my Grandfather Leo on my Moms side because he died when she was in her twenties. My Grandma Pickens was a sweetheart. Her name was Corinna Faye Horseman but she remarried a man named Jihn Pickens. She was a roundish blue haired Grandma who was a more traditional Grandma. She gave us treats and played the piano and had a garden. She was loving and a softy. She died when I was in fourth grade which was the first time I remember my mom crying. My Grandpa John was kind of scary. He liked guns and had a bra tie clip. I really only saw him at holidays because he made himself scarce when we went to Grandmas. She lived in a tiny little house with lots of nick nacks and I always talked her into giving me one.
Nonnie and Grandad. Madeline and Griff.
Corinna Faye, Grandma Pickens
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