Mae H. Grindstaff

To her family, friends and the hundreds of school children she mentored during a 30-year teaching career, Mae H. Grindstaff was singular. She was both genteel and a renaissance woman. After a brief illness, Mrs. Grindstaff passed away Friday, Feb. 23, at a care facility near her son Gary Grindstaff's home in Chino Valley, Ariz. She was 88. Prior to her passing, she had lived independently in a ranch house at the base of Thumb Butte Mountain in picturesque Prescott, Ariz. Until recently, she continued to read and travel a great deal. Mrs. Grindstaff was born Nov. 11, 1918, in the area of Trade, Tenn. She attended high school locally before earning a two-year degree from what was then Appalachian Teachers College. It was in the Trade area she began her educational career, teaching in a one-room schoolhouse. In the late 1930s, Mae Grindstaff met and married James A. Grindstaff, a local high school basketball star. They lived together in several locations, including Virginia and Cleveland, Ohio, before eventually settling in Chester County, Penn. Mrs. Grindstaff would go on to earn her bachelor's degree from West Chester University. Unlike many women at the time, she pursued a career in addition to raising three children. She earned a master's degree from University of Delaware with the special classification as a reading specialist. "She always said she could teach anyone to read," said her oldest daughter, Sue Williams. In addition to a teaching career that spanned three decades - and would include another one-room school house in the West Grove, Penn, area - Mrs. Grindstaff was an avid reader of history and novels and a published poetress. She penned prose about a number of topics, including life's various stages and people's wistfulness about success or travel. In addition to teaching many years in the Avon Grove School District in West Grove, Penn., Mrs. Grindstaff also taught reading skills to adults in night school. Over the years she received many commendations from school officials for her exemplary teaching work. In about 1958, James Grindstaff built the family home in West Grove, Penn. Mrs. Grindstaff would raise her children there, teach locally and enjoy sewing, reading, gardening and music in her free time. She took great pride in caring for her immediate and extended family and always maintained a lovely, welcoming home. Mrs. Grindstaff was fastidious about her appearance and manners. In retirement, James and Mae traveled frequently, including cross-country trips to Arizona, visits to the great south and once to Niagara Falls. Later, Mae traveled to Mexico, California and Washington. Mrs. Grindstaff was preceded in death by her husband, James A. Grindstaff, her parents, Anna W. and Boone Franklin Hodge, a brother, William S. Hodge, and two sisters, Fern and Ruby Graybeal, who shared a last name after marrying brothers. She is survived by her daughter Sue Williams of Prescott, Ariz.; a son, Gary Grindstaff of Chino Valley, Ariz.; a daughter Jeanne Wolcott of Phoenix, Ariz.; a sister, Bonnie Jones of Oxford, Penn.; a sister Geraldine Lanham of Branchville, S.C.; a sister-in-law, Iva Lea Hodge of Mountain City, Tenn.; two nieces with whom she was very close, Barbara Graybeal of Winston-Salem, N.C., and Pansy Greer of Lynchburg, Va.; two grandsons, Guy Wolcott of Sacramento, Calif., and Danny Grindstaff of Phoenix, Ariz.; a granddaughter, Holly Wolcott of Fort Collins, Colo.; two great-grandchildren; and numerous other nieces, nephews and cousins. A brief service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 3, at the Hux-Lipford Funeral Home, 300 W. Main Street, Mountain City, TN., followed by interment at Rock Springs Baptist Church Cemetery in Butler, TN, where she will be laid to rest next to her husband. The public is welcome. Condolences may be sent to the family through our website at www.hux-lipford.com Arrangements for the Grindstaff Family are in the care of Hux-Lipford Funeral Home of Mountain City, Tennessee.