Maynard Griggs Brown – An Extraordinary Life

Maynard Griggs Brown is content to spend her days in the sun-filled rooms of the house she has lived in for most of her 101 years. She especially enjoys the warmer months when the flowers in her garden bloom profusely and she can don her bonnet, go outside, and do a little digging around in the beds.

Her oldest son and, until recently, her daughter live with her and look after her. But Maynard has an independent nature and still cooks some and washes her own clothes. She loves to fish in the lake near her house and could do so for hours, but her eyesight is fading and she needs someone to bait her hook. She says her memory is failing, too, but then she recalls the years, the grades, and the many schools where she taught in Fayette County for over 40 years.

Maynard Griggs Brown says she hasn’t done anything special, and she wonders why her picture should be on the cover of a magazine. But that is where she is wrong. Her life is a history book of the county; a story of a strong and determined mother working against considerable odds; and a picture of a compassionate, faith-filled, and loving woman who was very much ahead of her time. And then, of course, there is the fact that Maynard Griggs Brown is enjoying her 102nd summer and appears to be thriving.

The Fayette County of Her Youth

Born on February 7, 1909, Maynard grew up with her mother, called Pippy, and her grandmother, directly across from Ebenezer Road where she lives today in a house built in 1912. “I remember when my mother, uncle and great uncle built this house and my cousin and I sat in the wagon and watched. I was three. Actually, I don’t know if I really remember it or if I just can picture it because I was told it so many times,” she laughs.

But what Maynard is certain of is the time enjoyed in this house with her uncle, aunt and their seven children. “One of my cousins was about my age, and we played together all the time. My mother would call for me to come home, but I would want to stay and my uncle would say, ‘Let her stay.’ I told my uncle that someday when he was ready to sell the house that I wanted to buy it. I told him to save it for me, and he said okay.”

What does Maynard remember about the Fayette County of her youth? “Oh, horses and buggies, and cotton fields,” she recalls. “We had 102 acres of land and fruit orchards with apples, figs, cherries and plums. We worked the cotton fields; cotton was the main money crop. We had corn, potato patches with Irish and sweet potatoes, and ribbon cane (sugar cane).”

Maynard went to Ebenezer School about a mile down the road until she finished 7th grade, and then in 1924, she started 8th grade at Fayette County High School. “At first, we tried to drive to Fayetteville each day in a Model T Ford we had,” she says. “But there were no paved roads, and the car would get stuck in the mud, and my cousin and I would be muddy and late. Back then, you knew about everybody in the county, so we started staying with families in town, doing light housekeeping for a room. We cooked our own meals.”

“Maynard has always been a part of my life,” says Fayette resident Evelyn Duke. “She and my mother were lifelong friends. They went to school together, and told wonderful stories about those days — going to school events and even dressing alike. Maynard has always been a hard worker, a kind person, and a lot of fun to be with.”

A Strong Woman

Maynard as a teenager

1929 was a significant year for Maynard as well as the country — she graduated from high school, and the stock market crashed. Fayette County, like most areas of the nation, suffered the devastating effects of the Great Depression during the 1930s. With her high school diploma in hand, Maynard started her teaching career, but schools were poorly equipped and sometimes there was no money to pay the teachers, who kept on teaching anyway.

One early job that Maynard recalls is the two years she spent teaching Grades 1-7 at a one-room school called Winona, which was located at the present Robinson Road and Highway 54 in Peachtree City. The first schoolhouse had burned down, and the school was relocated next door into the Shakerag “courthouse,” a building where people went to vote. “It had one window and a door, and on a dark, cloudy day we couldn’t see to read,” says Maynard. “We drew questionable water out of a well at the house next door. There was no eletricity. In 1936, the first year I was married, the school superintendent Mr. Sams and the inspector came out one day to look at the conditions. Mr. Sams said, ‘What do you think about consolidatin’,’ and I said, ‘I think it would be a good thing.’ So we consolidated Shakerag with Fayetteville, and my husband Raymond got the job of driving the first school bus route in the county for the kids living in the Shakerag community.”

Right after she married Raymond Brown, her childhood sweetheart, Maynard’s uncle remained true to his word, selling her his house and the land around it. “When I paid him the money, he handed Raymond back $90 and said, ‘Go buy you a mule and have a little farm on the side,’ and he turned to me and said, ‘You can pay me the other $90 later on.’”

For the next few years, Maynard was busy raising a family, but in 1947, she lost one of her children to spinal meningitis. Three months later, her Raymond died suddenly, and Maynard was left with four young children to support.

“Mother always said she hated farming and didn’t think she could farm for a living, so she went back to teaching,” says Sandra Duncan, Maynard’s daughter. “There were no teaching positions open near home so she had to go over to Woolsey. Transportation was not easy in those days, so she would live in our uncle’s camp house there during the week and come home on weekends.”

For five years, Maynard took her school-aged children with her to Woolsey so they could go to school with her and left the younger children with Pippy. Finally, a position became available nearer home and Maynard returned to Ebenezer Road.

“My mother moved into the house with me,” says Maynard. “She fixed it up and did the cooking, washing and other things that had to be done for us. I taught during the school year and went to school at North Georgia over the summer to get a college diploma. I would be so upset when I went to Dahlonega that I would have a terrible headache when I got off the bus. But then, I got up the next morning and went to class. I knew it had to be done.”

“Mother made a lot of sacrifices to better our lives,” says Sandra. “I remember crying when she would leave and sleeping with her picture under my pillow. We were so little, and those were hard times for all of us.”

After several years of summer classes, Maynard received her teaching credentials from North Georgia College in Dahlonega. Besides Union Grove, Oak Grove and Winona at Shakerag in the early years, Maynard taught in Tyrone (where there weren’t enough students for seven teachers), Fayetteville on Glynn Street and Hood Avenue, retiring from there in 1974 at age 65.

“Mrs. Brown was one of my mentors when I began teaching in 1964,” says Carol Sweatman, a former colleague at Fayetteville and Hood Avenue. “She taught many years, but she never stopped learning and growing as an educator. Her classroom was always filled with love, kindness, and mutual respect.”

A Lifetime of Retirement

“If someone had told me when I retired from teaching that I was going to live to be over 100, I would have told them they were crazy,” Maynard says, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I have lived this long, but I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. I’ve eaten a lot of fruit my whole life. I keep busy — and I have a lot of faith.”

Sandra says Maynard has been very active at Ebenezer Methodist Church her entire life and believes that her faith has brought her through some tough times, such as the 1963 auto accident that left her son Busey partially paralyzed. Maynard cared for him until his death in 1996.

“Mother always says, ‘This, too, shall pass,’ or, ‘Things could be worse.’ She truly lives by that. She also has a very compassionate spirit with everybody. She is a very loving person.

Maynard’s daughter-in-law Judy Brown concurs. “She has a positive attitude about everything. There’s never anything negative. She never says anything bad about anybody.”

“But she’s very honest,” adds Sandra, laughing. “If you ask her, she tells you — so watch out!”

After retirement, Maynard continued to keep busy. Fishing and gardening were top priorities, but she also participated in the theatrical production of “McIntosh Trail,” a play performed in Fayette County during the summer of 1976. She learned ceramics and art and traveled a little. In 1980, she learned to quilt, and within two years she was designing and selling her handiwork. An avid reader, she found more time to read. Maynard says her all-time favorite book is Lena Rivers, an 1897 romance novel that her teacher, Lizzie Brown, gave her for being “an obedient girl.” She also loved all the Ferrol Sams books because she “knew lots of people they were about!”

When she turned 89, Maynard began another phase of her life – caring for her great-grandchild, Lily. “She basically took care of Lily from age eight weeks until she turned 12, just this past year,” says Sandra, Lily’s grandmother. “She played with her, read to her, taught her art. It was a wonderful experience for both of them.”

“I’ve learned many things from Maynard in my lifetime,” says friend Evelyn Duke. “She has these wonderful work habits. She taught me all I know about gardening. She remembers the name of every flower. I love passing her house, still seeing her in her bonnet out in the garden.”

“I haven’t changed, I’ve just gotten old,” says Maynard. Except for a couple of setbacks (her spleeen removed in 1975 and colon cancer in 2003), Maynard says she has been “blessed with good health.” She takes no prescription medications, only a daily baby aspirin and vitamins for her eyes.

Her only regret is that she didn’t learn to drive until she was in her 50s. “Everywhere I went someone had to take me. I didn’t realize driving was going to be so easy,” Maynard says.

“If she could have driven, she would have really been independent! In fact, there were times that she might have kept on driving!” laughs Sandra.

The undisputed matriarch of the family, Maynard hosted reunions at her home until just a few years ago. The cousins who grew up in her house and their children would return. Maynard would pull out the photographs and family heirlooms. She would also pull out the journals that she wrote in every morning after her retirement, until her eyesight grew too weak. She says the journals, stacked under her bed until space ran out, record ordinary events and activities of the past 35 years — “nothing special.”

“I’ve seen a lot of changes,” Maynard says softly. “From horses and buggies to going to the moon! We have roads now, transportation, shops, groceries, a hospital, and lots of doctors. Things that make life much easier here in Fayette County.”

Maynard Griggs Brown is a lady who has lived 101 years. She believes it’s been a very ordinary life, nothing special. As usual, she is understated. She is a woman of indomitable spirit — a woman of great strength. For 101 years and counting, she has been an inspiring role model: a single mother committed to providing a good life for her children; a schoolteacher enriching the lives of others; and a person who has lived on the same road in the same house for most of her life but who, in many ways, has been ahead of her time. Manyard Griggs Brown has spent a lifetime working hard and keeping things together, and she is surrounded by people who love her and respect the sacrifices she has made. That is not an ordinary life — it is a life as special as a life can be.