Cleo Loreen Griffith - Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great-grandmother.
She will best remembered for her love of people, especially her immediate family. Her husband Bill, who died in 1980, was the love of her life. However, when Cleo became a grandmother, her need to love found an outlet in her first grandchild. She became a grandmother three more times and spent as much time as she could with all of them. And, since she lived next door to all four, they always knew where to go for cookies, ice cream, or someone to bandage their little cuts and scrapes.
Cleo was warm, caring, and fun-loving. She loved to dance, listen to music, talk with friends for hours, laugh and plan pot-luck dinners. Her reputation for cooking earned her a reputation as the “Queen of Comfort Food.” She also loved to knit, crochet, and do needlepoint. Everyone who was close to her owns one of her famous Afghans. She had an eye for color, and could always be depended upon to produce bright colorful blankets that are considered heirlooms by her family.
However, Cleo was also infamous for her knitted slippers that she always gave her family at Christmas. Now, if they had been used to keep feet warm, that would be considered normal; but, when we all learned they were fantastic for sliding across large expanses of waxed wooden floors, a whole new sport evolved! Once everyone had their slippers on, the running, racing, and sliding would go on until someone crashed into something or broke something or, as was the norm, the slippers wore out!
Cleo was also her grandchildren’s favorite philanthrophy! Every school raffle, candy or cookie sale, or field trip could depend on Cleo’s generosity. When her grandchildren needed to sell anything, they knew Grandma was a complete softy, and would buy anything they had to sell. An addded plus was that it was cookies or cand, most likely they would get them back in a week or two as a present. In short, Cleo was the grandmother from heaven that every kid hopes for.
When two of her grandchildren moved with their family to Albany in 1986, Cleo followed shortly thereafter, declaring, “No stranger is going to baby-sit MY grandchildren!” Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and birthday found Cleo sitting at her daughter's kitchen table, consuming potato chips and clam dip,(and on a rare occasion Bourbon and Seven) and offering advice on how to cook the best turkey gravy the world has ever known.
And finally, Cleo was best known by most of us for her sense of humor. Even in her final days, when she was declining rapidly, she loved to joke and kid with the staff who were her caregivers. Even though she was a mere shadow of her old self, she was still the great lady most of us remembered; a woman who filled so many lives with joy and laughter.
Cleo was one of a kind and will be sorely missed by all of us. Heaven is a better place today, if only for the improvement in its turkey gravy!
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