In 1985, Susan and Kelly Grissom moved to Edna. Susan worked at a local office supply and would hear from customers that it was difficult to find a daycare.
“Right then and there, I thought, ‘well, here we go,’ and Aunt Susi’s Schoolhouse was born from there,” she said.
266 kiddlets, 40 years later and a couple of Fridays ago, Aunt Susi held her last program, where hundreds of her ‘kiddlets’ showed up to celebrate their time there. Kiddlets are what she called the children, the mothers her crew, and the fathers her gentle giants.
In the schoolhouse, Susi had poster boards with every year listed and the students she taught, plus photo albums full of pictures over the years.
“When they told me they couldn’t remember what they were wearing during their program, I told them to go find their name, follow the year, find your album and your pictures are in there. They were so happy,” Grissom said.
Aunt Susi’s Schoolhouse students learned so much: from letters, numbers, animals, colors and shapes, to presidents and naming states. They learned manners, responsibilities, and accountability. They read a whole lot, danced and sang together, went for walks, picked up trash, and checked manholes with a ruler to see how much rain was collected.
In a way, Aunt Susi not only taught the kiddlets, but the parents as well.
“My goal was to teach kids things they should know, but they don’t.
I got them Hooked on Phonics, and they themselves will tell you, ‘phonics is the key,’” Grissom said. “The teachers I know want all their kids to go here because they’ll be that much more prepared.”
Grissom said her favorite part of the day was when her kiddlets walked through the door. When asked if saying goodbye was the hardest part of it all, she said no.
“The thing is, when I said goodbye, I knew they were ready to move on to the next level.
Watching them become independent is what I want, when they know how to tie their shoes, clean up after themselves,” she said.
Programs like Sesame Street, Babes in Toyland, The Roaring 20’s, Jungle Book, Cinderella and many more were remembered during the last program. Over the years she’s painted her own signs, stitched the kiddlets’ costumes by hand, and made them their own report cards.
At every program she wrote a paragraph about each child and shared with everyone.
Grissom is retiring to spend more time with her husband, Kelly, because he lives in a nursing home. Every day after work Grissom visited his nursing home to help him with dinner.
Legend
She’s also been developing relationships with other people who don’t have family nearby.
“We met out of high school and then he went to Vietnam in the Air Force. He sent a tape home and asked my daddy if he could marry me, so we courted through love letters throughout the year,” she reminisced. “God brought him home to me, and when the people at the airport learned he was coming home from Vietnam, they cleared a way for him.”
The couple has been married 56 years, raised three children, and enjoy a handful of grandchildren.
Grissom shared one of her many memories about her kiddlets.
“I heard a knock on my door and it was one of kiddlets grown up. I asked how he was doing and he said he was fine and wanted to sit in his chair one more time.
So I said come on, let’s go. While he was sitting there he looked up at me and said he was going to Afghanistan,” she said.
“So I told him to be watching for boxes, so we sent him goodies on the holidays.”
And in case you’re wondering, the kiddlet did come back home.
