Charlie Smith Grisamore

Charlie Curtis Smith Grisamore, 96, of Macon, died Friday, November 8. Services will be held Thursday, November 21, at 11 a.m. at Vineville United Methodist Church in Macon, with the Rev. Rick Burnett officiating.

Charlie was born May 1, 1928, and was named after her father, who died of pneumonia seven months before she was born. A girl with a boy’s name was almost unheard of in those days and led to many interesting and entertaining stories over the years.

Her mother remarried, and her parents were school teachers in Middle and South Georgia for more than 40 years. She graduated from Fitzgerald High School in 1945, where she won the state literary competition in vocal and drama her senior year. She was a soloist in 17 weddings.

Charlie attended North Georgia College in Dahlonega and was voted “most popular female on campus” as a freshman. She graduated with a degree in home economics from Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville. She did her student teaching in Washington, Ga., and taught high school home economics at Hawkinsville, Americus and Druid Hills High in Decatur.

In June 1952, she became a stewardess for Delta Airlines. In those days, stewardesses were required to wear wool uniforms, hats, high heels and white gloves, and to call every passenger by name. There were no non-stop flights, and she made many trips from Atlanta to Dallas on the “puddle jumpers” across the South. One of her passengers was Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Senator from Illinois, who was the Democratic nominee for President in 1952.

She met and fell in love with Jennings Melvin Grisamore, a young physician doing his residency at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. She called him “Gris.’’ During their courtship, he asked her to hike with him to the top of Stone Mountain on a Sunday afternoon. She didn’t realize she was being “tested,” but she passed and Gris later proposed.

They were married at First Baptist Church of Hawkinsville on August 7, 1954. They had five children – Ed, Gay, Susie, Sally and Charles – and lived in Atlanta, LaGrange, Portsmouth, Va., and Jacksonville, Fla., and Sandy Springs. When Gris was a physician in the Navy, he served his country in Vietnam in 1967-68 as the chief of surgery at the Naval Support Activity hospital in DaNang.

They moved from Atlanta to Macon in 2002 and bought a house on Stanislaus Circle. Gris died in 2006, and Charlie moved to Carlyle Place in 2011.

She was a devoted wife, sister, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend.  She was a devout Christian woman who loved to read and travel. She once rode a camel at the pyramids in Egypt, walked on the Great Wall of China, climbed a volcano in the Galapagos Islands, went swimming in the Dead Sea, picked a flower in Monet’s garden in France, took communion on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and petted penguins from a rubber raft in Antarctica.

Wherever she lived, she was active in book clubs, garden clubs, civic organizations and her church. She loved and served the Lord. She was tolerant of other beliefs and religions. As a teenager, she adopted the “three S’s” as her philosophy for a good life – “Spirituality, Simplicity and Sincerity.”

She was predeceased by her husband, Dr. J.M. Grisamore, father Charlie Curtis Smith, mother Madge Onys Richards and stepfather, W.E. Richards.

She is survived by her sister, Mary Foster, of Roswell;  sons Ed (Delinda) Grisamore, of Macon, and Charles (Holly) Grisamore, of Senoia;  daughters Gay (Jack) Hall, of Savannah, Susan (Eric) Kasiski, of Woodbridge, Va., and Sally (Alan) Davis, of Marietta; nieces Nancy Agans, of Garden City, Mo., Beth (Ron) Fincher, of Roswell, and Becky (Rick) Burnett, of Cookeville, Tenn; nephews Philip (Donna) Grisamore, of Macon, Mo., and Stephen (Michelle) Grisamore, of Columbia, Mo.; grandchildren Eddie Grisamore, Grant (Summer Sterling) Grisamore and Jake Grisamore, all of Macon; Jack (Taryn) Hall and Hannah (Matthew) Ambrosy, both of Savannah, Curtis Kasiski, of Woodbridge, Va., Julia (Kevin) Barwick, Sarah Davis and Mary Davis, all of Marietta, Kyle (Meredith) Grisamore, of Buford, Ryan Grisamore, of Atlanta, and Paige Grisamore, of Athens; great-grandchildren Brewer Grisamore, Sterling Gray Grisamore, Ginny Pope Grisamore and Bennett Grisamore, all of Macon, JJ Ambrosy and Jack Hall, both of Savannah, Thomas Barwick and Evelyn Barwick, of Marietta.

Memorials can be made to Crossroads Community Church, P.O. Box 205, Baxter, Tenn. 38544.

The family would like to express its appreciation to the staff of Carlyle Place and Pine Pointe Hospice for their love and care.

Hart’s Mortuary, 765 Cherry Street, Macon, Ga., has charge of the arrangements.