Evelyn M. Grisham (nee Jean Evelyn Malone) died on October 1, 2015 after a long illness. Evelyn was born in Nashville, TN on October 15, 1932, the first child of Cecil Martin Malone and Violet Preston Malone. She spent her youth on a farm along Hickman Creek and the Caney Fork River, near Gordonsville, TN, where she was deeply influenced by her grandmothers, Elsie Gibbs Preston and Sarah Foutch Malone. Evelyn graduated from Gordonsville High School, and then attended George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, graduating with a degree in English. Subsequently, she taught at Gordonsville High School for two years and then began her career as an editor of medical textbooks in St. Louis and as a free-lance editorial consultant in San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chapel Hill, NC. She moved to Chapel Hill in 1973 with her husband, Dr. Joe W. Grisham, who survives her after their 60 years of married life together. In Chapel Hill she worked as a volunteer for UNC Television and for the Educational Research Foundation of the American Medical Association Women’s Auxiliary, all the time supporting her husband and the faculty and staff of the Department of Pathology of the University of North Carolina.
Evelyn is survived by her sister, Erma Malone Poston and her brother Emmett C. Malone of Smith County, TN, and by nieces and nephews Rene’ Poston Cherny, of Cary, NC, Michelle Poston, of Murfreesboro, TN, Michael Malone, Robert Malone, Beth Malone Kemp, and Kelly Lynn Malone Pitman, all of Tennessee. She is also survived by her sister-in-law, Ollie Potts Grisham. of Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, and by nieces and nephews Jann Grisham (Tidwell) of Minneapolis, MN, Tommy Grisham, Linda Grisham Hartman, and Larry Grisham, all of east Tennessee and north Georgia, and by her brother-in-law, Max C. Weaver and nephew William Weaver of Tullahoma, TN.
Evelyn especially valued the caring people who succored her during her last days—including Karen Sage, Chris Civalier, Rene’ Cherny, Barbara and Gary Vantrease, and the staffs and attendants of Cedars of Chapel Hill Home Care and of Hospice and Palliative Care of Alamance-Caswell.
She will be interred among her many revered ancestors in the Gordonsville, TN, Cemetery following a leave-taking ceremony there at Bass Funeral Home, Gordonsville, on Monday, October 5, 2015 at 1PM. A private memorial celebration of her life will be held at a later date in Chapel Hill with her intimate friends.
Instead of flowers, memorial gifts may be made in Evelyn’s name to the Gordonsville Public Library (65 Main Street E, Gordonsville, TN 38563) for the purchase of books and/or to the Smith County Historical and Genealogical Society (Attention: John Waggoner, Jr., P.O. Box 112, Carthage, TN 37030) for the preservation and maintenance of old family cemeteries, now often abandoned.
