thedailytimes.com : Your 24/7 news source

A hard working farmer and mechanical guru, Dale Jones Griffitts successfully survived a heart transplant in 1993, had 79 skin cancers removed over the last 10 years, but could not conquer small cell cancer.

He was diagnosed as having the aggressive cancer in July 2007, had surgery that put it in remission for one year until it reappeared.

At 3:15 a.m. Saturday, Griffitts, 70, lost his fight with the disease. His mother and sister had died of the same type of cancer.

Born in Maryville on Sept. 16, 1938, to Mary Ida Jones and Edgar Griffitts, Dale was the second of five children -- Mary, Sue, Johnny and Anne.

He lived his entire childhood on farms on Browns School Road and Wilkinson Pike.

On Jan. 30, 1960, he married the former Marion Ridings and the couple built their first home on the family farm on Browns School Road in 1964.

After the farm was divided up among the siblings, Griffitts farmed his six acres, adding other farm rental property around the county. At his death he had more than 200 acres of farmland rented.

"His father was away most of the time on construction work and Dale learned to drive and run the farms with his grandfather. At a very early age, he was adept at tearing things apart and fixing them. His natural mechanical ability developed into his vocation and he became known in the area for his ability," Marion said.

His first job outside the farm was at Berry Machinery in his senior year at Everett High School. He also worked at the school - he had a truck and tractor and seeded the field and moved equipment.

He then was hired by the Ford tractor dealership in Knoxville, McNutt Motor Company, Rodgers Cadillac and the International farm tractor dealership in Maryville.

When the International dealership closed, he opened the Dale Griffitts Repair Shop behind his house on Brown School Road.

No time for sign

"The day he opened the doors, people were there. He never had time to put a sign up. Until he had the transplant in 1993, he had to turn people away," Marion Griffiths said. "He could not resist trying to fix things that other people had worked on but couldn't fix."

"Any time a farmer broke down, Dale would drop everything and go to help them," said Ed Mitchell, a retired Maryville fire chief who works his family farm off Wildwood Road near the Griffitts home.

On Easter weekend Dale and Marion achieved a goal. They moved to a new house on a high hill on the 196-acre farm his father and grandfather purchased off Wilkinson Pike and Laws Chapel Road.

"Dale said he was never ever going to get to spend a night in that house" because it was taking so long to build, his wife said. In the end, "we had several months to really enjoy the house."

In March 1993 he was diagnosed with a severe heart problem and was put on a transplant list. At 5 p.m. July 14 wife Marion, who was an administrative assistant to ALCOA Inc. Operations Manager Dick Ray, got a call from the University of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham. A heart, rumored to be that of a famous NASCAR driver, was a match for Griffitts.

"We did not expect to get the transplant that quickly," Marion said. Griffitts was in such good physical shape that he was chosen to get the transplant.

The family had two hours to get to Birmingham. They had chartered an airplane in Morristown to fly them to the hospital when a transplant became available. It took the pilot 45 minutes to fly to McGhee Tyson Airport. "They cleared the planes out. Like in an emergency situation. When we got to Birmingham, the hospital had a cab waiting for us," Marion said.

Griffitts was rushed into surgery, which took until 2 a.m. on July 15.

The family had to remain in Birmingham for six weeks as Griffitts' body accepted the transplant.

Never slowed down

Through all the medical problems he never let the transplant or his skin cancer slow him down.

When they came back home, "he was already back on the farm working and scaring me to death," Marion said. Griffitts got atop the roof of their new house and at another time was 45 feet in the air using a chain saw to cut wood for a new shed.

"He said we didn't give him that heart to sit in a chair," she recalls.

"He never ever quit. He always pushed to go on," said son-in-law, Darrell Swaney.

Griffitts had a route where he cut hay for people twice a year, going from Browns School Road out Wilkinson Pike to the farm there.

The cancer made him so ill and weak he could not finish the last cutting of hay on Wilkinson Pike. "His friends did that for him. That was the first time he admitted he couldn't do something," Marion said.

Some of those round bales of hay lay in fields, waiting for Griffitts' family and friends to bring them to the farm to feed his 150 head of cattle. He also had 16 burros, which initially came from the adoption program of animals from the American West. His menagerie also includes three goats and two dogs - a mixed breed and 2-year-old German shepherd.

Turkeys visit farm

Droves of turkeys also visit the farm. A total of 140 were counted down by the creek last week.

The turkeys are a trial for son-in-law McNeilly. He seeds bare dirt around the house and the turkeys dine on the seeds before they can root and grow into grass.

"Thankfully he was not that sick until the last three days that he lived," she added.

Even when he closed his mechanical shop, Griffitts got calls from people all over the country asking him about how to fix tractors. Griffitts always told them things to try.

Griffitts promoted organ donation, working with Tennessee Donor Services in Knoxville and the New Heart Society transport heart group in East Tennessee.

He was a member and former deacon of Maryville Friends (Quake) Church.

Survivors include two children, Anne Swaney and Leah Leblond, grandchildren and children McKenna and Karley Swaney and Luc and Elijah Leblond.