Sally Syble Hill Grafton

October 7, 1928 — October 14, 2011

Sally Syble Grafton, the devoted and loving mother of
six, and a long time resident of Anchorage , passed away
quietly in the late evening of Friday, October 14, 2011,
one week after her 83rd birthday. Memorial services will be held Saturday Nov. 12, 2011 at 4 P.M. in the Clark Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Dr. Gary Abbott officiating. Burial will be in Orange Hill Cemetery.

Syble" as she liked to be called" was the youngest of
eight children, whose only sister was the oldest,
leaving her at the mercy of six older brothers who,
though protective, liked to tease her by hiding her
Christmas candy, or by chasing her up a tree and
shooting china berries at her with blow-tubes, or so the
story goes.

She left her loving brothers and home town of
Hawkinsville , Georgia at the early age of 17 after
quietly marrying her sweetheart and life-long love
Francis "Frank" R. Grafton (whom she met on a jaunt with
relatives to Daytona Beach Florida ) on the eve of his
deployment to Germany in 1945.

Her husband's love of flying later saw the couple living
in Orlando where he worked at the Eastern Airlines
terminal until he re-entered the service as a young Air
Force officer on the eave of the Korean conflict.Thus
began Syble's long adventure in far-away homes and
travels. Her first such home was in Tacoma , Washington
, where son Charles was born in 1951. This was a lonely
time for Syble, who, like so many others, missed her
young husband taken away to the war. Late in 1953, she
took her son trick-or-treating and he, choking on a
candy, caused her in her polite nature to hose off a
neighbor's porch in the dark while very largely
pregnant: the next morning her second son, Ronald, was
born. Ronald was named after her brother who was thought
lost after his capture by the enemy, but later was
freed.

Then, after,a short time living in Hawkinsville with
her two sons saw Syble moving to Japan a mere 10 years
after the end of WW2. At that time Japan was still an
exotically different place, and the couple reveled in
the sights to be seen as well as the fine works of art
and finely crafted household objects to be had there.
Her sons Curtis and James were born there in 1956 and
1957, and in their teens had to be sworn in as US
citizens.

With Korea now a memory, Frank was put in the reserves
and the family returned to his home town of Ocoee ,
Florida for the next four years. They lived in their
first house, a lakefront property where her boys learned
to swim and "go play outside, now!" as she used to say.
Lots of dirt meant lots of baths for her boys in those
days.

The early sixties saw a return to the service and a
short 9-month stop in Minnesota just long enough for son
Clifford to be added to her noisy little army of boys.
Still no girl for Syble. Next stop was Travis AFB in
California .Here in 1963, she finally had her girl,
Hilda.She is said to have exclaimed at Hilda's birth:
"Ooh, I made a Girl !" This was a fine station for the
family which blended into a move back to Florida in 1967
as her husband left for Vietnam .

A few years later Frank left the service to join Japan
Airlines and the family moved to Yokohama , Japan in
1969. Then Syble's world travels really got going. She
was able to travel worldwide to the far east, Australia
, and Europe . Finally, in 1972 the family moved to
Anchorage , a fueling stop to Europe where many airline
pilots live. But Syble's travels continued with a two
year stop in SriLanka. Anchorage remained Syble's home
and the family rendezvous for nearly forty years, and in
this time she became a nurse and worked many years at
Providence Hospital.Now, so many years and times
later, she will finally return to Hawkinsville.

Syble is survived by all six of her children, nine
grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and many fine
friends like Vanda, of her nursing days. It can be said
of her that she achieved that rare personality of older
age: where she could say anything to anybody, and it
would always come out as charming.Syble's mother, Mrs
Jim Hill,would say with a wry grin: "I'm fat n' sassy!".
True to her mother before her, that happy, easy-going
heart was the center of this lovable lady.Hopefully,
some of it is carried on in us.

Clark Funeral Home has charge of arrangements.

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Sally Syble Hill Grafton

October 7, 1928 — October 14, 2011

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