Janice Grigsby was born on September 15, 19234, to Will and Mary Ritchie Thacker.  Janice would grow up in Leburn with her brothers Bob, David and Paul.  Her father Will ran a small grocery store in Leburn during those early years and she has fond memory of growing up in this small rural setting.  In talking with Janice today, she will  let you know early on that she is very proud of the fact she has lived  her entire life, except one year, at Leburn.                                         

Janice's early years were spent attending school at the Upper mill Creek School and later in Hindman High School.   It was shortly  after her high school career that she would meet her future husband, Enos Grigsby, of Hardburly, Ky.

When asked about how she met Enos, she laughed and said it was really odd.  It was late one night when Enos and another young  man came to their house looking for her cousin and Enos had rode over from Perry County with him looking for the cousin. Enos must have sparked an interest among several girls of he community for as she tells it the girls drew straws for Enos and Janice won.  They were married in March 1942.

From this point on Janice's life was pretty much devoted to her family and her work.  In 1934, her father bought the telephone line that ran from Lackey to Hindman and located the telephone switchboard in their home.  At the time there was on 15 telephones and Janice became the switchboard operator which she says was a very confining job but one she would held until 1953.

In 1945, her brother Paul had the idea of rebuilding the old system  and during this time Janice and Paul's wife shared switchboard duties. They would take the duty by the month and at the end of the month  would break the board down and carry it to the other's house. In 1950, Paul became discouraged and sold his interest to Janice's other brother, Robert. For the next few years Janice operated the switch-board almost exclusively and also assumed the bookkeeping duties for the telephone company and is presently Secretary-treasurer and office manager.

Janice's marriage to Enos was fairly short due to the fact he passed away in February 1953.  However the union left Janice with five important reasons to continue a very positive live. Those were her children: Dian, Patricia, Sandra Kay, Mary Jane, and William K. If you ask Janice about her life, she will devote the greatest part of  her story to telling you about her children, her 12 grandchildren,
and four great-grandchildren.  She may mention  she was a charter member of the Hindman Chapter of the Eastern star, she may mention she has devoted endless hours to helping the people of her community in their time of need, but rest assured she will go into great detail when telling you about Dian and her husband Jim Fields and the fact they own and operate a golf course in Lafollette, TN.

She will talk with pride and sadness about Patricia and the fact she was married to Omery Waddles and was a school teacher before her death.  Her story continues as she tells of Mary Jane and her marriage to Jim Hall and of her work at Thacker-Grigsby Telephone company, of William K. "Bill" and his wife Janet and their daughter and his work as assistant manager of Thacker-Grigsby.

By now you should begin to see, according to Janice's version of her life, it has revolved around her children.  But in talking with other family members, friends and neighbors, there is much more to Janice Grigsby than would appear at first glance.  She embodies the word friend and if there is an ounce of truth to the statement "a friend in need, is a friend indeed," then it goes without saying Janice has at times in her life been a friend in need, but most often, simply a friend indeed.

Corbett Mullins
April 2003