Rural Routes: 46 years of love and 'stick-to-itiveness'

Editor’s Note: Rural Routes is an ongoing photo feature series about the lives of everyday people in Southeast Missouri. It is scheduled to appear on Mondays in the Southeast Missourian.

Kenny and Jo Ann Griffon returned from eloping in Miami, Oklahoma, to find a note on the door from Jo Ann’s mother.

“I’m sure that [our families were] standing around saying, ‘It’ll never last.’ Probably some of them that are alive are still saying that,” Jo Ann said. “I guess we showed them.”

Kenny said he had been saved earlier that year and had been dating Jo Ann for only a month when he decided to propose outside of their church.

The strength of the Bollinger County couple’s marriage was put to the test almost as soon as it started.

Kenny Griffon lights an Exeter cigarette Wednesday on the front porch of his home in Bollinger County, Missouri.BEN MATTHEWS

The note on the door after their elopement informed the newlyweds Jo Ann’s father had suffered a heart attack. Over the course of their first year of marriage, seven more family members died.

“I think that God put us together,” Kenny said. “It’s been no bed of roses, but we pulled through.”

“We went into it with the idea of it working out,” Jo Ann said. “I was stubborn enough that even if we had problems, I would have stayed with him just to show some people that I could. We had stick-to-itiveness, and you don’t see much of that today.”

Whether their mindset is seen as stubborn or steadfast, the couple has become content in their ways.

The two never had children and have lived in their home along Route DD in Bollinger County for their 46 years of marriage.

Today, the couple continues to rely on a sense of “stick-to-itiveness” and faith in God to overcome hardships — most recently, the hardship of Kenny’s health problems.

In 2016, Kenny was diagnosed with cancer, causing him to get a feeding tube and undergo radiation therapy.

Eventually, the illness placed Kenny on an operating table to receive a tracheotomy.

When he woke up from surgery, Kenny was surprised to find he still had his trachea. The doctors could not find any cancer to remove during the operation, and Kenny was diagnosed as cancer-free Dec. 8, 2016.

Although he took a brief hiatus, Kenny continues to smoke today. His smoke-free wife says it’s not a healthy habit but knows she cannot make him stop.

As ivy begins to envelop the home, Jo Ann admits they cannot keep up with their home now as well as they have in the past. Despite the growing world around them, the Griffons are not changing a thing.

“To me, it’s home. I’ve lived other places, but I don’t want to ever live anywhere else,” Jo Ann said. “When I draw my last breath, I hope I’m carried away from here.”