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photo by Craven Grace Liggons-Lewis, known to many as Grandma Gracie, was the recipient of a new roof Satruday, thanks to community help. Grandma gets new roof Volunteers made this big wish come true By BILL VARBLE Roofer Randy Bilyeu is roofing a house on his day off, and that's fine with him. "We do it once in a while just to help," the Medford man says. Fred Holliman, a Medford contractor, is also among the men working on the roof of the modest house at the corner of Myers and Bryant in West Medford Saturday morning as a smattering of rain falls from a gray sky. Holliman says he read about the woman they call Grandma Gracie in the paper. "We do this wherever there's a need," he says. The object of all this industry, Grace Liggons-Lewis, 74, sits in an easy chair in her crowded living room, a small woman wearing a fur coat and boots and answering questions as a stream of people moves in and out. "I'm really grateful," she says. "It's just like Christmas." "Miss Gracie, you've donated so much for so long," says CERVS volunteer Joy Richards. Liggon-Lewis is a long-time CERVS volunteer, a foster grandparent in Medford elementary schools and a former foster home provider. She often makes quilts and gives them away. A story in the Mail Tribune's "Light One Candle" series in December told her story. Suffering from a bowed back, sickle-cell anemia and gout, she was canning food and giving it to disabled neighbors. Friends held a yard sale to help her out, but it didn't raise enough money to fix her dilapidated roof, which was leaking. That's where Laura Gallo-Hadley came in. The 29-year-old mother organized what she calls "Gracie's Roofing Project" after reading the story. "I had to get involved," she says. "Our society doesn't give the elderly the time of day. We're all going to be old some day." Gallo-Hadley and Connie Jones of A New Beginning Fellowship enlisted members of the Church of the Nazarene in Medford and several Medford contractors and building supplies companies in the project. They rounded up 22 squares of 3-tab roofing, roofing felt, plywood, a dump truck, staples and other building materials and enough food to feed their small army of volunteers. Originally from Temple, Texas, Liggons-Lewis picked cotton in the Depression after her father's income fell from $25 a week to a dollar a day. She lives on Social Security and a small pension her husband earned when he was living. She moved to Medford from Northern California in 1984 and has been in the small home for seven years. She says it's important to stay busy. "I worked harder after I retired than when I was working. If I didn't stay busy I wouldn't be here." Leading visitors to the kitchen, she indicates the ceiling. "I've been trying to wash it," she says. "I'm going to paint it. I do it myself. Can't nobody please me." She says she's thought long and hard about the world and the nature of things, and she's planning Bible lectures she plans to give to children. She figures that God's creative process has to do with energy. "Those men hammering are using energy, and I have to give food and water to keep it going," she says. "God himself is not going to come down here. But he gave us strength and wisdom. Wisdom has to come from God. It's the spirit of the Lord made manifest through people." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA