YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Meda Giffin

It’s only about 270 miles from Detroit to Cranberry Township, but it took Meda Giffin most of her 87 years to cover that distance. Today, she looks back fondly on her long and winding road, which has included both joy and heartbreak.

Born in Detroit in 1936 to Frank and Catherine Schubert, Meda was named after her paternal grandmother, Elmeda, whom she never met. She didn’t like her name, but later in life, it helped her to do genealogy research and she eventually wrote a book about the Schubert family. Frank was a mechanical engineer and traveled a lot.

“I never really knew him,” Meda says. “Then when I was in kindergarten, he died suddenly of a heart attack at home. His death affected me deeply and I suddenly became a fearful child, tied to my mother’s apron strings.”

After Frank died, Catherine and her three children moved to Oberlin, OH. While in junior high, Meda read stories about boarding schools and began lobbying her mother to attend one. A secretary at the First Congregational Church in Oberlin, Catherine knew a lady whose daughter attended a private school in Massachusetts, Northfield School for Girls. Founded in the late 1800s by evangelist Dwight Moody, the Christian-based school housed 500 girls, and its curriculum included daily chapel services and Bible study courses. Meda began attending in 1949 as a freshman, was baptized in the school chapel the next year, and graduated in 1953.

“Northfield is where the beginning and shaping of me and my personality started,” she says.        

During her years at Northfield, Meda began dating Phil Giffin, who was majoring in elementary education at Oberlin College. Phil’s father was a Methodist minister.

After graduating from Northfield, Meda attended Kent State University for one year, then went to a business school in Canton, OH. She was working at a local law firm when Phil proposed, and they married in August 1955. 

They soon settled in Mansfield, OH, where Phil began teaching sixth grade – “He loved the job and the kids loved him,” she says – while Meda worked as a secretary at a nearby General Motors plant. Their first child, Timothy, was born in 1958.

“After that, I became a stay-at-home mom, which I loved far more than being a secretary,” she says.

A daughter, Catherine, was born two years later. Phil then began teaching seventh grade in Ontario, OH, and the family built a home just a mile from the school. He also started coaching junior high football, basketball, cross country, and track.

“His students continued to adore him,” Meda says. “I always said that was because he was just a ‘big kid’ himself. Life was happy, and we were content.”

Years later, when Tim left for college and Cathy was in her junior year of high school, Meda returned to the workforce, as Clerk of the Mayor’s Court in Ontario.  She held the position for the next 23 years, working for six different mayors, before retiring in 2000. Phil, meanwhile, had quadruple bypass surgery in 1989, which left him with a paralyzed vocal cord. He retired from teaching a year later but continued coaching until 2014.

Tragedy struck the family in 2002.

Tim had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a popular teacher and coach in Van Wert, OH. He and his wife, Kathy, had three beautiful children. While running one day, Tim collapsed and died from cardiac arrest. He was only 43.

“We were devastated,” Meda says. “He had no symptoms that we knew of. Tim had a perpetual smile and was the kind of guy who never met a stranger and accepted all people as they were.”

The school closed for the funeral, which drew more than 1,700 people and included an altar call, during which dozens of students stepped forward.

“Tim led many young people to Christ, and I was proud to have been his mother,” Meda says. “The death of a child does something to you like nothing else does. It took me years to deal with it, but life goes on, and you cope and accept and adjust.”

During retirement, Phil and Meda began visiting Cathy in Cranberry Township a bit more often. She had married a friend of Tim’s, Kevin Cook, who worked for PPG and was transferred here in 1993. Cathy, meanwhile, homeschooled their nine children.

“When she was younger, she was forever wanting me to have another baby,” Meda says. “Well, I didn't, so she took care of that herself. When we came to visit, her older children were teenagers and stayed up late, which meant I didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. They solved that by building an addition where I could sleep peacefully when we visited.”

In 2016, Phil’s paralyzed vocal cord led to problems with pneumonia. He recovered, but the family decided it was time for Meda and him to move into that addition permanently. They sold their house in June, moved to Cranberry Township in July, and attended their first Dutilh Church service in August – the same day Pastor Tom Parkinson arrived.

“We found the perfect church for us that first Sunday; no need to shop around,” Meda says.

They enjoyed the next two years immensely before Phil began to have serious health issues and passed away in January 2019. Four years later, Meda reflects positively on the decisions to move into her daughter’s home and join Dutilh.

“It was the right decision to move in with Cathy and Kevin, and it was the right decision to choose Dutilh Church for our church home,” she says. “Both decisions have helped me to carry on. Because of Covid, I’ve been more of a homebody, but I love to visit with friends at Dutilh, and participate in Faithful Followers, and the Quilt and More, and Fabric Bag ministries. I also love to read, knit, do puzzles, watch television, and visit with family.”

Meda now has 12 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren to love and enjoy.

“Having a big family has been a great blessing,” she says.

It seems that Meda’s long and winding road has also been a very fulfilling one.

-Published March 8, 2023

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