Our grandmother Mary Julia Bell Grayson was born in Savannah, GA in 1909, the second of Joseph and Julia Bell’s six children. She was an attractive woman – slender, fashionable, and dignified. We knew her as “Mimi,” the nickname she acquired because her baby sister Betty Ann couldn’t pronounce “Mary.” Mimi was affectionate, generous, and most of all present for each of her eight grandchildren.
Mary graduated from Savannah High School, and was working as an assistant in the dental office of Drs. William Weichselbaum Sr. and Jr. The story of the courtship between Leon Harman Grayson (1906-1993) and Mary Julia Bell is one of romance and intrigue. Mary’s family was working class and Roman Catholic. The Graysons were college educated, politically connected, and Episcopalian. There may have been resistance from one or both families to the match.
“The Ugliest Man…”
Leon graduated from the University of Georgia in 1929 with a law degree, and Mimi told us she first met him when a girlfriend introduced them at his law office in the early 1930s. She later recalled that the tall, disheveled, and unshaven Leon was “the ugliest man I had ever seen.” The Graysons owned a home on Bluff Drive on Isle of Hope, three doors down from the home of Mary’s favorite aunt Mazie McLaughlin, near which by accident or design they undoubtedly met numerous times following their initial introduction. As the street name indicates, Bluff Drive sits atop a modest bluff above the Skidaway river into which the Grayson’s private dock extended. Depending on the tide, the drop into the river (or marsh bed) could be significant. It was on this dock that family lore insists Leon proposed to Mary – and threatened to jump unless she agreed to marry him.
Three Weddings
It is believed the couple eloped in late 1933 to South Carolina, then purportedly married in an Episcopal service in Savannah, possibly in June 1934 based on a family photo. Finally, they were certainly married at St. Ann’s Catholic Church on Tenley Circle in Washington D.C. in 1935, where Mary joined Leon after his appointment as a lawyer in the Justice Department. I suppose they wanted to make sure the marriage took.
Washington, D.C.
The couple never owned a home, nor a car after the 1940s. It was in Washington D.C. that they raised their only child and spent their remaining 60 years together, making semi-annual trips by train to visit their families in Savannah. They lived in a walk-up apartment on Sheridan Street N.W., and Mary worked for many years as a government clerk and later as a department store retail clerk. They took the bus or streetcar into downtown daily. Leon and Mary struggled with fertility issues, and both were into their 30s before their daughter Mary Ann was born in 1942. Mary’s elderly aunt Adelaide Barnard also lived in town and worked for the federal government. When she passed away in 1954, the Graysons moved into her building in the Woodley Park neighborhood, where (in our memory) the slowest elevator on earth clicked and clacked interminably on its way to their fourth-floor apartment overlooking Connecticut Avenue and the National Zoo. When the windows were open, the morning “whoop, whooop, whooooop” greetings of the gibbons at the Great Ape House were clearly audible, while the sight of a gaggle of escaped peacocks strutting down Connecticut Avenue still lingers.
A Full House
Though Leon and Mary had only one child, Ann and her eight children were a constant presence in their cramped two-bedroom apartment. We lived only a block and a half away and, if they had boundaries, we weren’t aware of them. We were expected every Saturday morning when our beloved Poppa (as we called Leon) made us a big breakfast including hominy grits and bacon, and we lounged on the floor watching cartoons. Sundays after Mass we’d sometimes be invited to enjoy a sandwich at the People’s Drug Store lunch counter, or more often back to their apartment. Many afternoons and evenings would find one or another of us stopping by for a visit. Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas would bring more formal gatherings. Our time with Mimi and Poppa was, almost without exception, spent comfortably, surrounded with love. They were living on Social Security, but they always had sufficient heat, food, and love for each of us, as they both understood there were times when one or all were scarce in our own home.
For our birthdays, Mary would take us to Hecht’s, Woodward and Lothrop’s (“Woodies”) or Garfinkel’s Department Store for lunch, then to a museum or other attraction. In December she’d take us to see the Christmas-themed windows at all the downtown stores, and to “the Secret Shop,” a kid-sized area at Woodies where we could buy one or two-dollar gifts for our parents and grandparents. Mary was charmingly vain with a wry sense of humor. After a trip to town she returned to the apartment and proudly reported, “Do you know what that bus driver said to me? He said, ‘Does your mother know your using her senior citizen card?'” Her granddaughter Susan remembers watching Mimi expertly apply lipstick while walking down the street. “When I marveled at her talent, she quipped, ‘Well, I have had the same lips for 80 years.'”
And finally, from her youngest grandchild Joseph: “Mimi and I were watching TV together, and I asked her if she knew who the actor being interviewed was. She responded, “I think so honey, but I don’t remember his name. Who is it?” Mimi that’s John Travolta. “Oh Jack Travolta. Heavens me.” A couple minutes later we were flipping through the channels and a movie with none other than John Travolta was on. I couldn’t help myself. I asked, Mimi do you know who that actor is? And she said word for word, “I think so honey, but I don’t remember his name. Who is it?” Mimi, that’s John Travolta. “Jack Travolta. Heavens me.” Alzheimer’s of course is terrible, but that story brings a smile to my face still.
Mary Bell Grayson has been the source of much joy and laughter. She was affectionate, generous, and there for each of us. We loved and cherished her equally.
Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.
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