Lowndes-Berrien-Benhill County GaArchives News.....Griner's Been Constant About Good Clean Living September 1979
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Helena-Suzanne Shreve ElusiveShreves@yahoo.com February 19, 2004, 2:52 pm

Valdosta Times
                            Griner’s Been Constant About Good Clean Living
                                               By Marcia McRae, Times Feature 
Editor
                                                     September 1979

    Earnest C. Griner is 90. That’s quite a statement in itself. But his like 
makes its own positive statement, reflecting his optimistic, happy outlook on 
things.
    During the near century of living, Griner has gone from farm boy to city 
man. His work has ranged from rail splitting to semi-pro baseball playing to 
teaching to postal work.
    But the First Baptist Church member for 56 years has been constant about 
good clean living. He attributes his long life to that and heredity.
    “My people are long life people,” said the Nashville, Ga., native, one of 
11 children.
    “My father would have lived to be 90 if he hadn’t spent four years in the 
Civil War,” said Griner who celebrated his 90th birthday last Tuesday.
    Griner has a brother, Robert Bruce Griner of Nahunta, who is 95.
    “And on the other hand I have never dissipated, never drunk, I’ve been 
temperate in everything.”
   Griner admits he smoked for 40 years but switched to chewing 20 years ago.
    He believes his enjoyment of sports and the outdoors aided his health.
    “I’ve always been an outdoorsman. I’ve fished and hunted all over these 
woods and in each lake and river from Suwannee to the Gulf,” he said, arms 
stretching wide to indicate the territory he’s traveled.
    The former Masonic lodge leader added working at the post office also aided 
his long life with regular hours.
    He started with the Postal Service in Douglas after a four year teaching 
stint. He gave up teaching to find a regular paying job.
    “Oh we had pay day but often there was no money to pay us,” recalled 
Griner. “I got disgusted and decided to find a job that paid on payday.”
    He came to Valdosta a year later.
    “I started to work here Sept. 1, 1918,” said Griner his keen memory 
showing. He retired 50 years later.
    He wanted to live in Valdosta from childhood when his family made many 
trips here.
    His father loaded the whole family into the hack, a four-passenger buggy, 
to come to Valdosta to sell cotton, or buy supplies.
    Once a year they came for his parents to outfit the whole family with a new 
wardrobe, he said.
    They’d pack the hack and come half way the first day, staying overnight 
with a cousin. On the return trip they’d stop overnight again with the cousin.
    Travel was a lot faster after Griner became a father. Often a Sunday 
afternoon was spent visiting his mother in Nashville.
    In addition to Sunday school and church activities, Sundays always meant a 
big meal, usually fried chicken, and the afternoon outing, recalled daughter 
Emily Bonner of Valdosta.
    She is the youngest of the three children. Her brother, Dr. E. Ray Griner, 
lives in Atlanta and her sister, Mildred Sage is in Shreveport, La.
    The Griner’s have 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. It was 
grandson Phil Sage of Denver, Colo., who eloquently summed up the type of man 
Griner is, said 
Mrs. Griner , the former Mildred Bailey, and Eastman native.
    “You are the finest man I have ever known,” Griner’s wife of 62 years read 
from her grandson’s birthday letter.
    “You are a true gentleman and a faithful servant of the Lord and have 
always been my example to follow.”
    Sage went on to say although his grandfather has faced many hardships in 
his life, he has come through them “always smiling.”
    That attitude has given the rest of the family strength to have faith and 
love to help others, Sage said.
    But Griner doesn’t talk about hardships. Oh, he admits he had them, but 
that’s as far as he’ll comment.
    But he will tell you about his misbehavior in high school.
    “I got flogged a few times,” he said, especially for the April fool joke 
the class played on the teacher. They left for a picnic at the river. They were 
expelled for three days too, he said.
    He was better at Norman Junior College in 1907-1908. After that he played 
semi-pro baseball in the area. “I played shortstop. A short man for shortstop,” 
he quipped.



Additional Comments:
From Helena-Suzanne Shreve. Great-granddaughter of Ernest Carroway "Grand" 
Griner.

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