Peggy Quincey
Peggy Ann Ruff Quincey, 84 of Trenton, FL, passed away on September 15, 2012. She was born on October 31, 1927 in Flint, Michigan. Mrs. Quincey was a farm-wife who worked hard to help on the farm and raise 8 kids. She enjoyed painting, fishing and a good belly laugh.
She was a member of Ebenezer Baptist church where she enjoyed teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir and teaching Vacation Bible School. Spending time with her family was her greatest joy.
Mrs. Quincey is preceded in death by her husband Clyde J. Quincey, two sons; Van Ruff Quincy and Samuel Bert Quincey, two great-grandsons; Cooper Clynt Whitehurst and Douglas Allen Quincey, two brothers and one sister.
She is survived by three sons; Rev. Danny (Barbara) Quincey of Midland City, Alabama, Rev. Clifford (Mary) Quincey of Enterprise, Alabama and Jerry (Pam) Quincey of Trenton, Florida and four daughters; Zo Ann (Bud) Johnson of Ocala, FL, Kay (Ronnie) Ward, Cindy (Ricky) Ward, all of Alto, Georgia and Pam (Jackie) Morrison of Trenton, FL. She also leaves behind 24 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great grandchildren.
Funeral services for Mrs. Quincey were held on Tuesday, September 18, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church, with internment to follow at Ebenezer Baptist Church Cemetery. Services were officiated by Bro. Clifford Quincey, Bro. Danny Quincey, Bro. Glynn Webber and Bro. Jim Countryman.
My Grandparents, Clyde & Peggy Quincey, taken shortly after they were married
Anyone who knows me, knows how special my Granny has always been to me.
When I was three, I started staying with her during the days, when my Mom went back to work. She and my Papa lived just down the road from us, and throughout my childhood, I saw my grandparents nearly every day.
While most of my family’s nickname for me has always been, “Annie-Bug”, my grandparents dubbed me, “Annie-Girl,” and at nearly 30 years old, Granny still called me that.
When I stayed with her, I was Granny’s shadow. I’d follow her out to the laundry room and to the clothes line to hang up clothes. I’d sit at the kitchen table and watch her make cornbread or hoecake for lunch. And if it was hoecake, I’d beg her to make chocolate syrup, too. I’d sit beside her and watch “stories” in the afternoons on the television.
Starting school was a rough transition for me. I missed Granny something fierce, which is why all through elementary school, every 6 weeks or so, I’d “come down with something” and need a home-day with her. She’d come pick me up from school and take me back to her house to lay on the couch, eat crackers, drink coke, and watch soap operas all afternoon. Yes, at 5 years old, I could give anyone the latest scoop on what was happening on All My Children, One Life to Live or General Hospital. :)
I went to Granny’s house every day after school, and she always had a Star Crunch or a pack of cheese/peanut butter crackers waiting for me.
Summers were always spent with Granny and Papa, and the first part always involved many days in the garden and putting up vegetables. Granny would pack me some crackers and some ice water in a mason jar and off we’d go. She’d always help me finish the row I was working on and never spank me for whining, when I’m certain I needed it.
She was gifted every art project I ever made in school. Last Christmas, I finally brought home the paper-plate glitter angel that I made when I was in Kindergarten. She hung on her tree every year from the time I gave it to her (even if it was in the back!) :)
My grandparents were there to watch me play T-Ball (even though I sat in the outfield and cried because it was hot). They were at my ballet recitals, and never missed me showing a hog or my steers at the fair. They listened to me practice my speeches over and over for every 4-H & FFA contest I was ever in. They’d cheer and be so proud when I’d win and they’d be ready to demand a recount when I didn’t. They were no doubt, always my biggest fans.
They thought I was the smartest kid they knew and always had me program the clock on their VCR and in their Oldsmobile.
When I failed my driving test the first time, both of them were ready to go up to the DMV and give those ladies what for. True grandparents, for sure.
When I got my first car, Granny’s was the first place I stopped. She hopped right in and took my VW Beetle for a test spin. It will always be one of my favorite memories with her.
When we went shopping in Atlanta, for my first prom dress, Granny was right there with us, and insisted I have the overly priced glitter ballet flats. She loved anything sparkly.
Years later, when we made the trek to pick out my wedding dress, of course Granny was in the middle of us all! :)
She was also in the middle of all the wedding soirees…parties, showers, shopping and planning…she was with us through it all.
A few months later, she was with my Mom and I at my soon-to-be home, and helped me unpack and put away all of the wedding gifts DW and I had gotten.
We danced “The Shag” together at my wedding.
All my life, I’d promised Granny she could go with me on my honeymoon and we’d go to Hawaii! (Granny always wanted to visit the islands, and I did, too, so growing up, it always made perfect sense). DW must have thought otherwise, because he didn’t plan our honeymoon for Hawaii…and Granny didn’t get invited. She didn’t hold it against us. :)
When I was pregnant with Cooper, Granny was with my mom and I at my dr’s appointment when we heard his heartbeat for the first time.
She loved my boy- and my boy loved her.
When we lost Cooper, Granny was the first person who’s hug and tears made me feel like they knew exactly what we were facing. Because she did.
When we brought Annabelle home from the hospital and Granny held her for the first time, she said, “Hello, Annabelle Peg..” and looked at me and said, “I love her name…don’t you?” Of course I did. I always knew if I had a girl, she’d be named after my Granny. Her middle name was chosen long before me and her Daddy even knew each other, much less were married and pregnant!
Maybree came along and Granny loved her too. Granny loved babies and Mamie-Girl was the little bundle of sunshine Granny needed in her final few months. She was always excited to see all of us when we’d go over for our weekly visits, but she LOVED getting to hold and love on Mames.
In my (nearly) thirty years worth of memories, there aren’t many places where Granny isn’t there.
I know how blessed I am that we had her for this long. On September 15th in the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by three of her daughters, one of her sons and one of her daughter-in-laws, Granny took her last breath on this Earth and went Home.
I’m happy she’s in Heaven with so many of her loved ones, including our Cooper, who I am sure was waiting on his Great Granny at the gate. She’s healed and healthy. The stroke she had six years ago took a toll on her, but she faced those trying times with such grace, just like she faced any trying time.
It’s been 15 or more years ago, when Momma, Granny and I went to a funeral of a family friend, and the woman’s granddaughter got up and spoke. It was so touching and Granny loved it. We talked about it afterward, and I told her I’d do the same thing at her funeral one day, as long as it was MANY, MANY years later! When I was younger, I used to say if anything happened to she or my Papa, they better just dig a hole for me right beside them.
For years, I’ve known that one day the day would come. Of course we did, that’s life. We didn’t know how or when, but we knew it would come. What I didn’t know is that it would be something I would pray for and thank God for. Life’s experiences have a way of changing our view on things. There is no doubt I will miss my Granny until my own dying day. I know there will be days when I just ache to hear her say, “Hey Annie Girl” one more time. No doubt I will miss the comfort of knowing there was someone living just across the county who loved me as much as she did. But, I am thankful that Jesus took her Home. Her death was not a tragedy. I am thankful she isn’t confined to a wheelchair or at the mercy of another’s hands. She is healed and whole. I KNOW that’s why I was able to stand up at her funeral and pay tribute to her. I don’t know how people who aren’t Christians face death.
I thought Granny’s funeral service was beautiful. I was able to talk about her and I’ve never been more honored to do anything.
I tried my best to write and speak on behalf of all of my cousins , and below is what I ended up saying at the service:
“When I was a little girl, I was having the kind of serious discussion that five year old little girls have with their Papas. We were in deep conversation about how he was the only Papa I had left. As the story goes, I told him that I did have three Granny’s though. Granny Morrison, Granny Shoemaker, and Plain Granny. You see, Granny needed no other name to identify who I was referring to… she was JUST my GRANNY.
Of course, “PLAIN”, though, could never be used as a descriptive word for her- no, she was the farthest thing from plain that I know.
Growing up, I thought Granny was the richest woman I knew. Her house was filled to the brim with sparkly shiny things and she even had what I thought were diamonds hanging from her chandeliers. I’d heard her say more times than I can count, that she felt like the richest woman in the world. And, while she did love things that sparkled and glittered, Granny lived simply – and her true treasure was in her family. It was when she talked about the family she and my Papa had raised and the multitude of grandchildren and great-grandchildren that came from them, that she always referred to herself as the richest and for sure most blessed woman in the world.
I happen to think, and I know I can speak for my entire family, when I say, that WE are the ones who were most blessed because we had HER.
Granny wasn’t the “buy you everything” and bake cookies kind of grandmother. In fact, she hated baking cookies! She wasn’t one to spoil us, but she had a way about her that made EVERY one of her grandchildren feel special. She had her little nicknames for us, and made sure all 24 of us knew that she loved us.
As her grandchildren, there are several things we could always count on Granny for…
- Having Coke in the house was one of them. I’m not sure if she loved Coke because the bottle was her signature colors – red, black and white, or if she just loved it, but she always had a 2-liter on her kitchen counter. Coke never tastes the same or near as good when I have it anywhere else. There’s just something about her kitchen.
- And in that kitchen, you could always count on spaghetti for Sunday lunch. Served of course out of the yellow pot that was missing a handle.
- On Saturday afternoons, you could count on Granny to have her hair rolled for church and a scarf tied around it.
- You could always count on Granny to have a red Halls cough drop or a pack of White Wrigley's Spearmint or Big Red gum in her purse. And you could count on getting just half a piece, because no one needed a mouth full of chewing gum.
- Early in the morning, you’d find her sitting at her kitchen table sipping coffee from a teaspoon.
- You could always count on Granny to shut off and unplug the TV during a thunder storm and to jump and say “oooohhhh” every time the thunder clapped.
- You could also count on her to jump at least a mile high if you snuck up on her. She always told us she was Levy County’s biggest coward. She may have been a self-proclaimed scardey cat, but I will never forget the time she rode the Old Georgia Scream Machine with some of us kids at Six Flags!
- You could always count on Granny’s famous “Precious Cake” to turn out perfectly…and you could count on it NOT to when anyone else ever tried to make it.
- You could count on Granny to put on her red lipstick before going anywhere- we could be canning tomatoes and she’d be covered in juice , but if she had to make a run to town for more jars or lids, she’d run by her bedroom and grab some lipstick first. She took care of herself and took pride in looking nice. Never in a vain way, because Granny knew and reminded us all, that “pretty is as pretty does.” And Granny was beautiful on the inside and outside. I loved that at her surprise 75th birthday party, as we were “roasting and toasting” Granny, my Aunt Faye told about how beautiful they all thought she was the first time they met her. She and Papa were already married before any of the family got to meet Granny and when they did, they thought she was SOMETHING. Of course it could have been the fact that she could and WOULD do cartwheels that stole their hearts, but either way, she did.
- We could always count on Granny to mispronounce people’s names and some words… a few of my favorites are: “Christmas Ointments (instead of ornaments), soie sauce (instead of soy sauce), Shurriff (instead of Sherriff) and I’m sure none of us can spell Missouri correctly, because we grew up hearing Granny pronounce her home state as “Missoura”
- You could always count on Granny to have a good sturdy box sitting on her back porch. She’d use it to carry food out to church for dinner on the grounds, to a family before a funeral or just a pot of greens down the road to our house because she’d cooked a pot big enough for us, too.
- Granny could always be counted on to wear a hat to church on Easter and Mother’s Day, and sometimes, just because. – She loved accessories and she could always pull them off just right. This is why her daughters and some of her granddaughters are paying tribute to her by wearing hats today, even though its way outside of most of our comfort zones. We all know, Granny would LOVE this!
Granny’s laughter was infectious. You could not hear her laugh and not start laughing too. She laughed often and I believe she learned early on that laughter truly was the best medicine. She also learned early on, that sometimes she’d need to laugh to keep from crying…something I heard her say many times. Laughing DID get her into trouble a few times though, when it came on at the wrong times…but more times than not, it kept her sane.
Granny was kind to everyone and a good friend to so many. If you were the underdog, you can bet she’d be on your side. She took care of others and knew how to love people well. She took the time to notice the needs of others. She’d take friends who didn’t drive to and from church or to the grocery store and doctor’s appointments. I’ve seen her cook meals for others and mop kitchens that weren’t her own, simply because it needed doing.
We could always count on our Granny to honor God in everything.
Of all the things I saw in my Granny, the most important is what true faith is. Not what “just going to church” looked like. I never remember hearing her quote scripture, but I can’t count how many times at night I’ve seen her curled up in her chair with her Bible in her lap. She didn’t get into big theological discussions or debates. She didn’t live in a self-righteous or judgmental bubble either. Granny was simple in her faith. She believed it, but more importantly, she LIVED it. When things were bad and life left her shaken, she would say, “it’s going to be alright.” Even when I am sure she didn’t know how it possibly ever could be, she trusted the Lord that it would. Such unshakeable faith and unwavering trust.
Our Granny was a shining example of what a true friend, godly wife and mother and picture perfect grandmother should look.
There will never be another like her and we will miss her so much.”
~amw~
