Cheryl Jean Griffith

Cheryl Jean Dennis, was born, January 21, 1947 in Springfield OR, to Bert and Shirley Dennis. She was the oldest daughter and second of four children. Her early life was full of the love and laughter enjoyed by their family of six. She was a tomboy through and through which on one occasion resulted in a broken arm. A favorite sport of her’s, was playing rough and tumble with her younger brother Daryl, and one time after he chased her into a corner and she spun around, the cast on her broken arm connected with her brother’s front tooth resulting in a trip to see the dentist.

Summer days were filled with picking beans and happy adventures like visits to grandpa and grandma who lived in Ashland OR and family road trips with all six of them crammed into their Morris Minor. When at home Cheryl enjoyed riding her beloved horse Ginger over the hills near her house.

She attended Emerald Adventist School in Pleasant Hill through 9th grade and then went on to Laurelwood Academy where she graduated from high School. At Walla Walla College she studied elementary education until she met the love of her life Fred. They were married August 18, 1968. For their honeymoon they traveled through Canada with many adventures and much love ending the trip at Pennsylvania Ave in Washington DC where they set up house in a small basement apartment so that Fred could begin his lifelong career and passion for deaf ministry. Cheryl began college again, but after three days she came home and told Fred, “I don’t want to be a college student, I just want to stay home and be your wife”.

First baby Joey was born in 1970 and after that came a move to a house in Jessup Maryland where little Linda joined the world and where the happy young family lived with their dog Sparky until Spring of 1975. Then it was a move back across the country to Idaho where they built a house in Garden Valley among the pine trees and winter snows. A favorite activity for Joe and Linda was sledding downhill in the classic ‘red plastic sled’ to get the mail and then being pulled back up the hill by Cheryl in a nearly mile long round-trip daily adventure.

During this time Fred was employed at work outside of full-time ministry, but God had a plan to return him to that. It happened in a week full of miracles centered around camp meeting held at Gem State Academy in ID. The week started when Cheryl was driving with Joe and Linda in the family’s Plymouth Duster around a bend on a two-lane country highway and was distracted by Linda’s breakfast sliding off the seat. She forgot to straighten out after a big curve and the car went over the edge and down a rather steep embankment towards the river. But in that moment Cheryl had a peace come over her that had to be from God and that kept her from the natural inclination to jerk the wheel back towards the road which certainly would have resulted in rolling the car.

The week ended with Fred receiving and accepting a call back to full-time ministry for two small town churches in Idaho, one in Rupert and the other in Eden Valley. It was here that Cheryl’s career of teaching took root in the weekly “children’s meetings” of the church’s youth, a sort of informal pathfinders with lots of outdoor games like capture the flag that Cheryl would always play in.

Before she was a teacher, Cheryl was a mom, (and according to her two kids, she was the best mom ever). She spent hours and hours reading stories to them. There was no TV in the house back then, but it was never missed because her reading was so entertaining! She could even make doing chores into a game of sorts, with little color drawings on white plastic Mason jar lids and magnetic tape. She would put these up on the fridge, one side for Joe and the other for Linda and the fun was in pulling the little pictures off the fridge as the chores were completed.

In 1979 the family moved again so that Fred could pastor deaf congregations in California. By this time both Joe and Linda were being home schooled by Cheryl and her career as a teacher had begun in earnest. This didn’t mean that the kids got off easy because their mom was the teacher, and so they looked forward to summer vacation that meant trips to see Grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins in Oregon and Idaho, going to camp meeting and then the summer’s grand finale, the annual backpacking trip! These were looked forward to year after year and even chickenpox, nearly sinking rafts, rainy weather and cross-country routes through unforgiving manzanita bushes, could never stand in the way!

Cheryl loved her two kids with all her heart and always wanted more of them. She knew from experience how much fun a bigger family could be. At one point Fred and Cheryl looked at fostering or adopting, but God had a better plan, one that gave Cheryl many, many more kids than she could ever hope to raise at home! However, it meant stretching herself way beyond her comfort zone. All her life she dealt with social anxiety from interacting with adults. When it came to kids, she was right at home but to become a teacher outside her own home, she would have to overcome this fear. And God came through for her again as she began to teach school with David Tramblie or Mr. T as the kids would call him. He was a wonderful principle and mentor to Cheryl at the two room Adventist school in Manteca CA where she started as a teacher’s aide, thus making her road to teacher and eventually school principal, a much smoother one.

Starting in 1985 Cheryl taught at the Manteca SDA church school until she retired at the end of the 2012/2013 school year. 28 years of loving kids, teaching them to read, write and figure and playing recesses with them! No sport, from softball to soccer was too much for her and both sides wanted her on their team! Mrs. G, as her kids called her, was probably

known best for her school programs which involved a whole lot of memorization work! She thought the more the better, especially if it included Bible texts. There would also be lots of singing and acting and it all pointed to the source of her inspiration and hope, Jesus Christ. At the end of each program there would be an appeal for money to help an overseas orphanage or for Adventist World Radio.

The Parkinson’s manifested itself for the first time while playing sports with her kids, she just wasn’t able to pitch the ball in softball and “make it go where it should”. If it hadn’t been for the disease she’d still be teaching to this day, but that began the last chapter of her life and a move with Fred and both of her two children and their families from California back to her emerald, green Pacific Northwest! Even after Parkinson’s reared its ugly head and the move up to Washington State, she continued for a time as a volunteer math tutor with several students from Meadowglade Adventist Elementary.

Mrs. G is free now from Parkinson’s, she’s resting in Jesus waiting for Him to wake her up for the grand reunion with all of her kids! Her lifelong work, over teaching of any math or science, over any history class or spelling B, was that her kids be in heaven with Jesus! Not only her kids but everyone she knew and loved. Her life work and call to everyone she knew will not go unanswered and she will have that grand reunion in heaven very soon!

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to Adventist World Radio in honor of Cheryl.