Our Legend award winner has had quite the journey

By Randy Capps

When Flora Grantham and her husband, Preston, retired, they moved back to Smithfield, his hometown.

Both spent their professional lives working in cancer research, and they developed plans for a home in East Smithfield. But when Preston suddenly passed away in May 1989, Flora, a Maryland native, decided to make Johnston County her home.

In the 31 years since then, Grantham has left a lasting legacy on her adopted county, and for that she has earned the 2020 Johnston Now Honors Legend Award.

“I’m surprised,” she said. “I’m just an ordinary person.”

She’s also modest.

In her career as a Biological Research Technician at the National Cancer Institute, she received seven service awards, co-authored 36 scientific reprints with titles like “The Collagen Content of Transplanted Tumors” and earned a patent for a more humane cage for laboratory animals.

In looking for ways to spend her retirement years, she picked up the Smithfield Herald and saw plenty of opportunities with the Johnston County Extension.

“I was wondering what to do after spending 32 years in cancer research,” she said. “So, I joined the extension. I got a chance to meet Bruce (Woodard) and a lot of people around here in Johnston County.”

Soon the North Carolina Cooperative Extension had her busy, “working from Murphy to Manteo.”

She served on the North Carolina State Board of Trustees from 1993-2001, and still serves on the school’s ECA/FCS Foundation Board and the College of Agriculture Advisory Board.

For that work, N.C. State inducted her into the 2020 Class of the Jane S. McKimmon Family and Consumer Services Hall of Fame.

Grantham found things to do closer to home as well.

Sarah Ann Sasser and Ellen Taylor introduced her to Keep Johnston County Beautiful, and with that organization, she helped get “The Historic Architecture of Johnston County, North Carolina” published in December 2016.

“They had started the book, but after 20 years, it hadn’t been published,” she said. “We started the Festival of Trees in order to raise enough money to publish that particular book. Working with them, we were able to go to Raleigh where they had all of the historical pictures and put it together. In the 10 years we did the Festival of Trees, we were able to raise more than $64,000. We had a lady come down to put it to together and Todd (Johnson, director of the Johnston County Heritage Center) and Wingate (Lassiter, former editor of the Herald and current publisher of the Smithfield Weekly Sun) were interested in the history also, so we worked together in order to get that done. So, I was a part of that. Secretary, treasurer, coordinator, researcher and I took a few pictures. It was just the next thing to do.

“My sister was a librarian, and most of us in the family had a college education. So, I like reading, traveling and doing things like that. And with 36 scientific reprints, it was easy for me.”

Her interests go beyond science and history, however. She was instrumental in getting the JoCo Quilting Program started.

“I noticed when I went to Asheville and different places, traditionally you saw pictures of quilts on barns in the countryside,” she said. “My mother quilted. She was a homemaker, and I love to quilt. So, when one of the agents came here, I said ‘let’s do some quilting.’ In this area, I hadn’t seen the native crafts of these people published anywhere. As we began, six or seven of us, the hospice center asked us to make a quilt. They asked for fabric from (the families) of someone who was deceased from the center, and once we received that, we made a quilt.

“That’s what we do. That’s our joy.”

That quilt, unveiled in April 2018, honored the memory of 49 people, one of which was Grantham’s daughter, Patricia Ann, who died 10 months earlier.

The JoCo Quilters teach 4-H members how to sew, and they produce quilts for area hospitals, the Ronald McDonald House and Project Linus.

In whatever free time she has left, she enjoys baking.

“I love to bake,” she said. “I was in Pillsbury Bake Off (in 1984), so in much of my time, my friends are asking for cakes and cookies and things like that.

“Outreach is amazing. I consider myself a real Johnstonian now.”