GRIMMETT, Joy Shirah

Rebecca Joy Shirah Grimmett passed away in the early morning of November 6, 2021, age

95, at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. She was born November 30, 1925, in Montgomery, Alabama, daughter of Reverend Angus

Morgan Shirah and Elizabeth

Mabel Shirah.

Joy Grimmett was a teacher for twenty years at Prattville High

School in Prattville, Alabama. She was a social worker with the Children’s Aid Society during the 1950s, in Birmingham, Alabama, and taught high school in Dodge County, Georgia, in the 1960s. As a teacher, she taught psychology, sociology, and American history. She also had a strong interest in genealogical studies and was active in the civil rights movement, especially with regard to the Equal Rights Amendment, and her teacher’s union. She served as president of the Gainesville, Florida, chapter of National Organization for Women (NOW) and as a district director of the Alabama Education Association. In 1965, she earned a certificate from the University of Alabama in education for special needs children and participated in a pilot program that was among the first of its kind. She subsequently taught classes for special needs children in Dothan, Alabama. She had a Bachelor’s Degree in Christian Education from Scarritt College in Nashville, as well as a Master of Education Degree and a Specialist Degree in Counseling Education from the University of Florida.

Joy’s husband, Frank Douglass Grimmett, Sr., died in 1997. She is survived by three sons and two daughters-in-law: James William Grimmett, of Franklin, North Carolina; Frank Douglass, Jr., and Jane Bixby Grimmett. of Atlanta; and John Shirah and Sarah Grimmett of Manila, Philippines. She is also survived by three grandchildren: Allison Bixby Grimmett and Andrew Grimmett, daughter and son of Jane and Frank Douglass Grimmett, Jr., and Michael Lapiceros Grimmett, son of Sarah and John Grimmett, plus surviving nieces Elizabeth Carter, Rusty Ennemoser, Patty Strickland, and nephew Chuck Shirah. Mrs. Grimmett will be cremated, and her ashes interred next to her husband, at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Prattville, Alabama. There will be a graveside service at noon on December 4, 2021. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Children’s Aid Society at childrensaid.org.