In Memory

Grady Wells

 

 



 
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03/01/16 01:47 PM #2    

Thomas Dapice

Grady was a friend of Peter Tobey who was a friend of mine.  One day Peter and I went to Grady's house to visit.  We listened to a new release by Bob Dylan - Highway 51.  It was the first time I had ever heard Dylan, and so I am eternally grateful to Grady and Peter both for the introduction.


03/02/16 07:46 AM #3    

Bob Janis

Grady was a pal in my youth. We did not get together often but it was always fun when we did. I loved the house on Old Norwalk Rd. Plenty of room for two young lads to run around in some kind of game. We reconnected at Uconn for awhile and his sister, Priscilla, became a housemate in a large rental we had my last year. She had two comical blue tick hounds, Dudley and Dexter.


03/02/16 09:39 AM #4    

Chris Carlson

I remember Grady as being a very good athlete, and an extremely energetic one. One day in gym class at South School he pursued a ball with such gusto that he ran right into the wall, splitting his head open (as we said back in the day) and being carted off for stitches. He was an excellent pitcher in baseball; I remember one mild summer evening playing Little League in Mead Park (remember the Good Humor man?) when he spun a very crafty one-hitter against my team. The game was written up in the Advertiser ("Rollin' it Out" with Bob Petronella? Or "Keeping Score" with Don Souden?), which quite accurately described him as a "stylish southpaw". He was all that and more--and a very nice guy to boot. So sorry  he's gone.


03/02/16 01:04 PM #5    

Lauren Holt

My memories of Grady were mostly of 6th grade with Mr Rice, although he was in my class from 3rd grade on. It seemed to me ( anybody else?) that although Mr. Rice was one of my favorite teachers, and I (we) learned a lot ( I can still say all the prepositions in alphabetical order), there was a personality clash between he and Grady. He was SO hard on him, that it made me cringe sometimes. Grady was such a nice looking guy, athletic to the max ,and very fun-loving. Perhaps  Howie Rice didn't feel he was working up to potential, or perhaps I misconstrued it. Mr. Rice was one to bring in anything and everything as an object lesson, a fact to which Polly Schumann will attest, and I can too. I was always uncomfortable with his treatment of Grady, but those were different times. Today, if that happened, there would be hell-to-pay for the teacher, and transfers out of classes, and all manner of agony for the administration of the school. Glad we lived then, but wish that year had gone a little differently for Grady.


03/16/16 01:38 PM #6    

Gail McPherson (Edie)

Grady's lyrical name is imprinted indelibly on my memory. He was my first experience with what it meant to have a "boyfriend" in about 3rd or 4th grade, which is to say complicated! I have a mental image of Grady storming around the playground and me trailing after him, feeling it necessary to defend his energetic behavior to the other girls. Perhaps the clash Lauren remembers with Mr. Rice had to do with this energy and a bit of unruliness in childhood. After that my memory bank closes, and he is relegated to my distant past. The fact that he is no longer alive to enjoy our 50th makes me ever more grateful that I am, and sad that I will never be able to tell him that he meant a lot to me as a child.


08/22/16 02:14 PM #7    

Ann Thurber

Grady and I were friends for a good part of junior high and high school.  He had a great sense of humor and, during the final years of confronting cancer, such courage.  249 Old Norwalk Road, New Canaan, will always be the Wells House for me.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


08/27/16 01:21 PM #8    

Alix McCririck (Hirabayashi)

Our 4th Grade teacher was speculating on the age of an old man in a lesson she was giving us. Grady piped up "Chop him in half and count the rings!!!!" That one line and the hysterical laughter that followed is the strongest Grady memory I have. Funny,creative, a bright spark.I still dine out on that remark.

08/29/16 11:26 AM #9    

Chris Carlson

That is so funny, Alix. I'd forgotten, Mrs. Moore's class?

 


08/30/16 09:40 AM #10    

Barry DeLapp

4th grade was Mrs. Moore's class.  My father never let me forget what she wrote on my report card: "Barry does the minimum work very well." That defines damning with faint praise.

But Grady was a both a friend and combatant.  He was the first to climb the ropes in gym to the roof and switch to a different rope for his descent.  He was a ferocious dodgeball player.  I think he may have been the reason dodgeball has been banned from schools everywhere.  He made me better by trying to keep up with him.  I'm sad that he won't been at our reunion because I have many fond memories of the South School with Grady.


08/30/16 12:23 PM #11    

Alix McCririck (Hirabayashi)

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theithacajournal/obituary.aspx?n=grady-wells&pid=106971914

Grady continued to live LARGE. This is a remarkable tribute.  Poignant, hilarious and honest.  What an appetite for life!


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