Now grandparents can rest in peace — together

“They’re there together now,” Renee Starnes says, “and they must know ... ”

Together forever in a tiny churchyard in Statesville.

Renee couldn’t keep that to herself. She’s sure Grandmaw knows the dream she had for nearly half a century has finally come true, and she must be so happy with Grandpaw there beside her.

It says something about how much her grandmother, Margaret Shell, and her grandfather, Spurgeon Shell, loved each other — and how much their family loved them.

But she can’t help smiling when she says their names.

“Her birth name was Maggie,” Renee says, “but when she got in school, there was a little cartoon called Maggie and Jiggs, and some of the children made fun of her and this little boy, so she changed her name to Margaret.”

And her grandmother used to tell her that Grandpaw’s mother must have been mad at him when he was born or she wouldn’t have given him such a horrible name.

But he was a wonderful and a loving man — and died too young.

They were married in 1936, and when he died in ’56, he left her with six children between 8 and 17 years old and all in school. They were living in Asheville because he was a railroad engineer and that’s where he was based.

“He had prostate cancer,” Renee says, “and back then there wasn’t a lot that could be done.”

Renee knows that story well. She was the oldest grandchild and spent time with her grandmother, finally moving in with her when she was 16. So she heard the old stories over and over again.

She remembers Grandmaw telling her she always got up and fixed Grandpaw’s lunch when he had to go out on a run, but one day she was so sleepy, she fixed a sandwich without putting anything between the two pieces of bread.

And he just teased her that he had a “jam” sandwich that day, because she’d just jammed the bread together.

When Grandpaw died, she says, “he kissed her and told her he was going, and he would wait for her in heaven, but he was buried up there in Asheville.”

That was far away from family for a young woman with that many children.

“She was 43 years old when my grandpa died,” Renee says, “and never remarried. I can remember asking her, ‘Why don’t you get me a grandpaw?’ and she said there never would have been another one like him.

“So probably about a year after he died, she moved to China Grove” to be close to her brothers, Henry, Clyde, Early and Bill, and her sister, Mary Feimster Wilson, who had moved from Statesville to China Grove and Landis. Clyde Feimster, who lives in Landis, is the only one still alive.

They were a comfort, but that didn’t keep her from wanting Grandpaw closer.

“All the years I can remember her always saying to her children, ‘I want to bring Daddy to Trinity Church in Statesville where your grandmother and grandfather are buried.’ And she’d tell us grandchildren, too, because that’s where she wanted to be buried. Nobody in the family is still a member of that church, but that’s where she grew up.”

And she wanted to go back — and have Spurgeon with her.

“I was the first grandchild,” she says, “and I moved in with her when I was 16 because I loved her so, and on my wedding day, I cried and cried and cried, and she asked me what was wrong, and I said, ‘I don’t want to leave you.’

“She petted me. It was ‘Honey, this’ and ‘Darling, that’ and ‘What would you like to eat?’ She was wonderful.

“The other grandchildren came there a lot, and she petted them, too. First, she was busy raising her own children, and when she got them raised, her grandchildren started coming along. She was a wonderful cook. The only thing she didn’t cook real well was fried squash, but I could fix fried squash, and sometimes she’d ask me to fix her some. Her best was baked beans, the best you ever ate.

“She always offered you food. No matter where you’d been, she thought you were hungry and thought you had to eat something.”

And her attic fascinated a little girl.

“When she’d go pick the garden or feed the pigs or cows, I knew not to mess, but I’d love to go upstairs in the attic and mess. And she’d come in and fuss, ‘You’re not supposed to be up there. You’ll fall and get hurt,’ and I’d promise not to, but I’d go mess around anyway.

“I was always there on the weekends, from the time I was born until I moved in, and my Uncle Michael and his wife and two children came every Sunday, and my Aunt Virginia came a lot, and a cousin, Michelle. She’s just 13 months younger than I am, and she was very close to my grandmother, too.”

Grandmaw “was very soft spoken, and we never ever got a spanking at her house,” Renee Starnes recalls.

But the grandchildren grew up, and Grandmaw got sick. She died on Oct. 23, 2000. She was 87.

“She had been in a nursing home for a couple of years, and that was very, very hard and sad, and I wouldn’t call her back to this old earth for anything. She’s in heaven with him and her mama and daddy, and it’s a much happier place than it was here at the end.”

Except Grandpaw wasn’t in Statesville with her, and they all knew how much she wanted him there.

“When she was well, I would take her sometimes up to his grave, and my cousin, Michelle, took her sometimes, so she got to go pretty often. She’d take flowers to the grave and clean the grass off of the headstone, and we’d go eat, and she always had to go by and look at her house.”

So when she died, her oldest son, Michael, knew the family had to talk about bringing Daddy back.

“It was a decision Mom made many years ago,” Mike says. “She just couldn’t afford to move daddy. After she died, we all met as a family, and one of the first things I asked settling up the estate was, ‘Do you want to move daddy down here with mama?’ That was her wish. And everybody did.”

“And then they made the arrangements,” Renee says, “and brought him down here Jan. 9, a little more than a year after she died.

“The children and the grandchildren went to the graveside when they moved him, and the Rev. Paula Judy — she’s the minister of Oak Grove Methodist in China Grove where my grandmother was a member after she moved here —came and conducted a little service, and we put flowers on the grave.”

When it was over, she says, “we felt very happy. We just wished that she could know that what she wanted all these years had finally come true. We got to do it. I was thinking, ‘Oh, how I wish she could know this is happening,’ and some of them said, ‘Oh, Mama would be so happy.’

“There’s a headstone with their names on it. It was the headstone he had in Asheville. They had it moved down from Asheville, and they added her name.

“And now we feel like she rests in peace, now that he’s with her, down here in body and up there in spirit, because he told her he was going to wait on her there.

“But we sure do miss her. She had nine grandchildren, and at the time she passed away, there were 10 great-grandchildren. But there’s been another one since then and one on the way. She was a sweet grandmother.”

And they all still go see her.

“I can talk to her,” Renee says. “I tell her that I love her and how things are going and that we miss her. It makes us all feel good.

“What amazes me is her never remarrying because she loved him so, and if he was as wonderful as she was, I can see why.”

Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com .