Thresa Leach

Thanks, Grammy!

It was a cold rainy day in October, and the last thing Tonya wanted to do was what had to be done. Her Grammy had recently died due to complications from COVID-19, and it was time to clean out Grammy’s apartment. Grammy had lived in public housing in a small town in Florida. Tonya lived about 45 minutes away in Alabama. During the drive, Tonya reflected on her Grammy’s life. Grammy was an amazing woman. She was born in 1904 and had married young. She and her first husband, BJ, had seven children together one of which passed during childhood. BJ died six months after the last child was born. Which left Tonya’s Grammy to raise six children on her own. She worked as a tenant farmer to raise her children. She remarried when her youngest daughter was about 12 years old. She and her husband Harry had one child who also passed during childhood. Loosing a child can leave a person bitter and cold, but Grammy persevered. She was survived by all six children who made it to adulthood, 35 grandchildren and even more great grandchildren. While she never owned land or had much to her name, she always had enough. The thing Tonya admired most about her Grammy was she’d done all this on a third-grade education.