Written by her eldest granddaughter, Meredith Lee Swinford
Patricia Murphey was born in Adrian, Michigan on September 12, 1927. Her father was from Barnesville, Georgia, and mother was from Chattanooga, but she grew up in Michigan, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. As a child, she was feisty and fearless. She told a story about her father yelling upstairs to her “You better stop talking and go to sleep or I’m gonna come up there and spank you!” She yelled back, “You better spank me, cause I’m not finished talking yet!” She graduated from Washington Seminary All-Girls School in Atlanta, where she once spiked the punch at the Parents’ Day Event, with the liquor she hid on her closet floor. After high school, she attended the University of Georgia for two years, then a business school where she received a secretarial certificate. While a student, she was asked to teach the shorthand class and be the secretary to the dean. In 1949, she returned to her beloved Georgia Tech campus, hired as the secretary to Dean Purshing, the Dean of Students. She was the first “Valentine Queen” of the Tech newspaper. The staff referred to her as “Murph.” Once, she posed with members of the newspaper staff for a pictorial coverage of good smooching spots on campus. John Huskisson was a staff writer for the Tech newspaper and Sports Editor for the yearbook. He had to come to her office to pick up his paycheck and deliver columns to be typed. They began dating in 1949, were later pinned, engaged, and they married on St. Patrick’s Day 1951. She became “Patty” while dating my grandfather. An excerpt from a letter he wrote to her: “Whenever I start to call you by a special name like Honey, or Sweetheart, none of the words I can think of are powerful enough, and then I feel that maybe if I yelled them it would satisfy me, but of course that isn’t possible nor does it suffice. I wind up just saying the name I think of first and imagine the rest. ‘Patty’ feels dearer than most.”
After marriage, my grandparents moved to Schenectady, NY where they both worked at General Electric. My mother was born there. They moved to Savannah, then Tampa where my uncle was born, then back to Savannah to settle for good. She thought all newborns looked like Winston Churchill, so I assume that applied to her own children. She was involved in the Windsor Forest and Armstrong Booster Clubs. She was a stern parent and believed in discipline. She once told my mother, “Kathleen, if you don’t get up, you’ll still be in bed!”
My grandmother loved games. She enjoyed playing bridge and taught me how to play many card games. She frequently used obscene language like “peach poop,” and when cheering on the Yellow Jackets, she frequently exclaimed, “Run, cute little boys, run!!” She enjoyed giving me dating advice. She enjoyed giving it much more than I enjoyed receiving it. She thought the key to getting a date was “dropping your hankie” and waiting for a gentleman to pick it up. I kindly informed her that, although that might have worked at Tech, it would not work in Athens. She loved music. She played the piano as a girl and loved to hear others play. When we gave her a keyboard one year for Christmas, the first tune she played was the Tech fight song. She loved Strauss waltzes and religiously watched the New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July orchestra specials when they played ragtime and Sousa marches.
She wrote letters and poems to out-of-town family members. She was notorious for giving us full medical reports in every letter. She frequently wrote around all edges of the page, in every margin, and on the envelope after she sealed it. Her poems were usually titled “Ode to something,” an event, a holiday, a person. I have chose two poems to share today. She made fun of her own poems, so don’t be afraid to laugh. She was so embarrassed by some poetry that she signed them “Anonymous” or “Author Unpublished.”
ODE TO HALLOWEEN
"Halloween is once a year
And that is probably dandy.
Or else we'd all be 5 x 5
From eating all that candy!
So stick to your guns
and go to the store
and get carrots and celery and such
And stay beautifully thin
And keep all the men
From saying 'how did she gain that much?'"
ODE TO DRY POND CHURCH
"Dry Pond Methodist Church is the place to be
On a Sunday morning, Don't you agree?
The Church is lovely and, oh, so quaint
Built with loveing hands a long time ago... and lots of paint!
The real heart of the Church is, of course, the people
Who are charming and witty and then there's the steeple-
Pointing to Heaven where we all hope to go
If we 'play our cards' right, Maybe 'twill be so!"
My grandmother taught me how to count with 7 rooster coasters which hung on their living room wall. Not only did she teach me to count them, but she taught me that roosters say, “cut-cut-cut-cadaaaaaaacket.” I enjoyed eating at my grandparents’ house. Grandmommy’s best meals were spaghetti, Thanksgiving dressing with peanut butter in it, and camper’s stew. Camper’s stew was so cheap to make, it became a regular meal in college. You heat pineapple, baked beans, and cut-up hot dogs in a pot and you can eat it for days! My brother liked Grandmommy’s salad that always included celery and cucumbers cut into hexagon shapes with the skin cut off. You know- the things that Moms never have time to do, but grandmothers do. After dinner at their house, I always sat in the red captain’s chair and ate ice cream with sprinkles out of the same white bowl on a Strawberry Shortcake placemat with a plastic blue spoon.
The funniest, most recent story of my grandmother’s determination was what we refer to as the “Annie Oakley story.” Their house was invaded by a man, who thought no one was home. Granddaddy was at work, so there wasn’t a car in the driveway. The man entered the house by the carport and walked all the way through the house toward the bedroom. He walked in the door of the bedroom where my grandmother was. There he saw his challenger: an 82-year old woman with a shower cap on, curls taped to her face, cold cream on her face, ratty slippers on, styling a nightgown with strawberries on it. As if that weren’t scary enough, she screams, “You better get outta here, I’ve got a gun!!” I am convinced that she didn’t even need to mention the gun, which she didn’t have anyway, she only needed to stand there in her morning glory. That man was running.
In another letter before they were engaged, my grandfather told her how he felt. He says, “I’ve known for quite a while, but I guess I didn’t fully realize until now that you have given me my first real purpose in life. You have created a change in me that is still small, but is increasing; and I feel better because the change is for the better. I think you realize something of the tremendous effect you can have on me by only a word or an act.” My grandparents were somewhat of an institution in my mind. My grandfather supported her through her victory over breast cancer. She supported him through double pneumonia, knee replacement and lung disease. She cooked and he educated. They both played with us. She showed us cooking, he showed us plants, animals, and woodworking. She taught us etiquette, he taught us how to get away with launching potatoes at the nearby vacant house and telling dirty jokes. They worked as a team. For me, their house was an escape from everyday life. I could read new books at bedtime, play games anytime I wanted, sit next to Granddaddy and watch funny shows, have toppings on my ice cream, and drink fruit juice out of shot glasses. In my adult years, their house was a place where you could drink a glass of wine as early in the day as you wanted, if Granddaddy was around.
An era is over. Another thread connecting me to my childhood has been cut. My grandparents have always expressed pride in what I’ve done and who I am. At the end of both of their lives, they asked for my professional opinion about their healthcare choices. I could not have been paid a higher compliment. The acknowledged who I had become and put trust in me. When I helped my grandfather during his illness, he commented that my company needed to build a satellite office in Savannah because he said they couldn’t do without my help. During the last few weeks, as I physically lifted my grandmother and transported her to doctor’s appointments, I realized that not only are our lives a cycle, but our families are a cycle too. Recently while laying in the hospital bed, my grandmother gently touched my face, and said “thank you for spending so much time away from home to help me.” The last time I spoke to her, she hugged me and apologized for needing so much assistance. She said, “Honey, I can’t believe you missed work to help me today. I love you.” I responded, as I always did to both of them, “I love you too. This is what family is about. This is what we’re supposed to do because God gave us to each other.”
Oddly enough, one of my saddest moments after Granddaddy died, was when I realized that Grandmommy was going to have to watch Tech football games alone for the first time in her life. Because this was such a bonding event and source of joy for both of them, it crushed me to imagine her watching the first game this weekend. Now, they never have to be without each other for a game. They can start this season as they finished the last, together- screaming “Run, cute little boys, run!!”
The Latin Requiem begins, “Requiem Aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.” “Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may light eternal shine upon them.” “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors.” My grandparents suffered physically and emotionally at the ends of their lives- and now they rest together. They rest from the labors of work, anxiety, pain, hospitals, breathlessness, dependency, weakness, drugs, uncertainty and grief. They thrive in the light of love, peace, forgiveness, and wholeness. They are both restored to health and unlimited in joy.
I cannot believe that they are both gone. The grief is compounded. I’m happy that they are now healthy and together, but I’m mad that they’re not with me. When I think of the emptiness caused by their collective absence, I understand that the emptiness exists only because love also exists. In “The Prophet,” Gibran writes, “When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
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