Ted Lindsay Grayson

Ted, 94, was born at home near Sharpsville, IN on the Tipton county farm of Silas “Pete” Grayson and Lowey Lindsay Grayson. July 31, 1926 was a hot, humid day. Ted continued to thrive on humidity, heat, and warmth his entire life. He was Pete and Lowey’s only child – an unexpected delight later in their marriage. Pete was a widower with a six year old son, Charles, when he married Lowey. Less than two years after Ted’s birth, Charles married Elsie. Ted frequently commented how lucky he was to grow up with two sets of loving “parents” (all deceased).
Ted was 5 yrs. old when Charles and Elsie had their first-born, Ned. Ted then had a “brother” with whom he shared a lifetime of antics and mischief. Ned and his wife Sharlot’s (Tipton, IN; both deceased) sons “The Grayson boys” Whit, Kyle, and Barclay survive. Eleven years after Ned’s birth, his sister Peggy and three years later his brother Bob were born – Ted’s niece and nephew for whom he had great affection. Peggy Grayson Williams (Dick; Kokomo, IN), children Angela, Jayson, Todd and Robert “Bob” Grayson (Penny; Greenwich CT), child Emily all survive.
Ted loved to tell stories about his early years. His farm upbringing during “The Great Depression” surrounded by love and the land created Ted. One of his life goals established in early childhood was to one day have a washcloth without holes so big the soap fell through as he used it. Hand-me-down clothes remade from those of girl cousins “from the city,” a chicken caught from the yard for Sunday dinner – often the only meat that week, and years with the very real threat of his parents losing their farm were Ted’s childhood reality. Ted accompanied his father, president of the county Farmer’s Union, to “penny sales.” The bank would foreclose on a farm, and the sheriff would be ordered to sell the farm and all contents at auction. Farmer’s Union members would converge on the auction with visible shotguns, pistols, Barlow knives, pitch forks, and ropes. One member was designated to bid one penny. This threat of harm to anyone who dared top the one penny bid worked. The bank was left with one penny and had no choice except to let the farmer and his family remain on the farm to pay what they could when they could. In his writing and presenting about “penny sales,” Ted summarized with, “I was privileged to witness the accomplishment of the very important objective of the Farmer’s Union.”
Every day began before dawn with livestock chores. The family’s first tractor wasn’t purchased until Ted was 10 or 11 yrs. old so his first years of field work were with horses. Early on he was part of the threshing ring until later in his childhood when combines started being used. “One thing about growing up on a farm – I sure learned how to work.” Around the same time that first steel-wheeled tractor arrived at the Grayson farm, so did the electric lines. Ted enjoyed working with all things mechanical and helped bring electricity first to the barn and later to the house. As a teenager, he read a book about plumbing, talked to the local hardware man, and figured out how to put the first indoor plumbing in the family farm house. Ted always had dogs and his own horse Dixie, a bucking horse bought for him from a rodeo by his dad. During high school and beyond, he and Dixie participated in amateur rodeos for extra cash. Dixie was also essential as Ted’s transportation to town to school when he was thrown off the bus for misbehavior.
Ted graduated from Sharpsville HS in 1944. He especially enjoyed two years on the debate team which had been newly formed his junior year. With amusement, he would recollect when the team won their debate against Indianapolis Shortridge HS. Those debaters were curious about Sharpsville because they had never heard of it. Also beginning his junior year, Ted rented the farm and equipment from his father and did the farming. He continued to farm the home ground growing crops and raising dairy cattle and hogs for four years. He also farmed neighbors’ ground. Ted served as Sunday school superintendent at the Methodist church in town. His social hours were spent with many friends and activities of the Rural Youth organization.
As president of the Tipton county rural youth, he was tasked with visiting and making reports about the conditions of one and two room schoolhouses throughout the county. Also participating in these visits to recruit members for 4-H was Rosanna Jean Shoe. Ted was immediately and forevermore taken with “beautiful and brilliant” Rosanna. Their first date was to a church revival at the local Baptist church as suggested strongly by his future mother-in-law. Ted readily agreed because it was free, and he was sure it would include lots of good food.
In 1945 Ted’s education expanded in an improbable way. Indiana University opened an extension campus in Kokomo, and Ted was in the first class. For an interview with IUK Ted shared, “I’d get off my tractor, kick the dust off my feet on a fence post, climb into my ’39 Chevy and go to class. I knew it was the only way. Education was the gateway.” He laughed remembering studying German vocabulary on his tractor with the flashcards he had made perched on the steering wheel. Throughout his life, Ted attributed the opening of the Kokomo campus as what provided the opportunity for his career as a surgeon which he added along side being a lifelong farmer. He was honored to speak in 2019 at one of the 75th anniversary IUK events. “I suspect I wouldn’t have gone to college if IU hadn’t come here…There’s a definite need for a place like this where a kid can go locally to school when he or she doesn’t have the money or the ability to go away.”
Selling his manure spreader, the first piece of farm equipment he had purchased himself, he bought a microscope and headed to IU Bloomington (BS ’50). Next came IU Medical School (MD ’53) where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honorary Medical Society. All of these summers Ted worked long hours to finance his education. Employment included St. Joseph Hospital orderly and Chrysler pipe fitter both in Kokomo; Wishard (now Eskenazi) Hospital Operating Room, IU Medical Center X-ray Dept., and Central State Hospital all in Indianapolis.
Throughout all of this, he and his beloved Rosanna maintained a long distance relationship, most often by mail, while she attended Ball State University (BS ’52). Two weeks after her graduation, their long-awaited marriage was celebrated with great enthusiasm at a reception at her parents’ farm home. The ceremony had just been held a mile down the gravel country road at Hills Baptist Church where they shared their first date over five years earlier. Their loving partnership, filled with all that mattered to them both and obvious to all who knew them, continued for 64 yrs. until Rosanna’s unexpected death Dec. 13, 2016.
The newlyweds lived in Indianapolis where Ted finished his last year of medical school while Rosanna supported them financially as a high school educator. These roles continued in St. Louis, MO where Ted began his internship and surgery residency at Washington University/Barnes Hospital. There was, however, a two year interruption when Ted was drafted as part of the “doctor draft” in the Korean conflict. He served in the U.S. Navy as the medical officer on board the USS Navarro. Ted and Rosanna thoroughly enjoyed exploring the areas around where he was stationed in Seattle, San Diego, and Norfolk, VA. Next he spent extended time at sea including ports in Japan and the Philippines.
Following his discharge, the couple returned to St. Louis for Ted to complete his training for the wage of $9.95 a month while Rosanna taught to support them. During these six post-doctoral years Ted served as a National Institutes of Health research fellow and an American Cancer Society research fellow. His interests were surgical oncology, sodium depletion, and steroid metabolism.
The couple chose Indianapolis as their home and moved there in 1961 at which time Ted established a thriving private practice. He and Rosanna eagerly anticipated long-awaited children. Within a few years their family was complete with the births of Susan, Greg (deceased Nov. 2016), and Tom. Ted was an active, involved father both at home and with his children’s myriad of activities. He was most pleased to be able to arrange vacations to share places he had learned about in school but never imagined being able to actually visit. Another of his favorite family travel traditions was Lost Valley Ranch, CO focused on horses and riding. Ted also took great pleasure in participating in the lives of the children and grandchildren of neighbors, friends, and extended family.
Ted and son Tom shared many common interests including working in their well-equipped home shops, using their John Deere tractors to do all their own yard work, and target shooting. They were together at the farm shooting 3” clay pigeons on Ted’s 90th birthday. Tom commented on Ted’s still-amazing accuracy and Ted responded, “Well, what did you expect?” Father and son also shared being skilled, compassionate surgeons and the many years of rigorous education/training culminating in their profession. Most of all, they shared being devoted husbands and fathers. Ted treasured the times he spent with Tom and his wife Kristen and his grandsons Ben and Michael at their Richmond, IN home as well as when the four visited he and Rosanna at their Carmel home.
With son Greg, Ted also shared his passions for tools, guns, and home grounds maintenance. Ted actively supported Greg with equipment, ideas, and encouragement in his successful lawn care business through his school years. They also both built and maintained very elaborate model train layouts. Throughout Greg’s participation in triathlons, Ted and Rosanna were often there cheering him on. They also took an active interest in the projects he designed and implemented as a landscape architect, attending Greg’s public professional presentations and making site visits.
Daughter Susie also spent time with Ted in the shop at the work bench he had lovingly built for his young children. The family’s every-other-weekend visits to both Ted and Rosanna’s parents still living on their farms gifted Susie with her lasting loves of the land, the open countryside, and spending fascinating time with elders. Ted and Susie shared passions for community involvement, music/cultural performances, traveling, exploring, History, and current events. They have both served many as both natural mentors and trained educators. Ted’s quick wit and humor clearly passed to Greg and Tom, and it is Susie who inherited Ted’s complete delight in listening to all people’s stories and sharing one’s own.
Ted was in private practice focusing on abdominal and thoracic surgery for 30 yrs. He was an active member of both the surgery section at Indianapolis Methodist Hospital and as a clinical associate professor at Indiana University School of Medicine. Hundreds of interns and residents trained under him at the operating table. From 1975-78 he was the Methodist Hospital Surgery Dept. chair and later served on the hospital’s Board of Directors. Ted also operated on patients at Hendricks Co. hospital, St. Vincent hospital, Winona hospital, and at the IU Medical Center. Throughout his career, he wrote several published articles for professional journals and also served as a speaker on countless occasions. His passion for the technically challenging aspects of less common major surgical procedures was equaled by his joy of sharing stories with his patients having minor procedures under local anesthetic. He had many, many patients who lived in rural IN on farms, in the country, and in small towns with whom he swapped stories related to their common interests and life experiences.
Ted’s office secretary Shirley Barnes and his nurse Joie Kipka wrote a letter of commendation for his retirement which read in part: “…he has seen approximately fourteen thousand patients. Among those loyal, trusting, admiring, and grateful patients have been ourselves, our spouses, our children, and our grandchildren…surgical skills and compassion…wise in giving counsel when it was sought. He has worked diligently and accomplished much. We have always been proud to say we worked for Dr. Ted L. Grayson, this brilliant man, who always left us laughing.”
Throughout his life, well into his nineties, Ted remained active in and passionate about agriculture. His 94th birthday was spent at the farm looking over the soybeans. He and Rosanna proudly supported their roots and their ongoing involvement with crop farms. Along with Mike and Ginny Glunt and family they built the Somerset Farm seed stock and farrow-to-finish swine operation. Nearly 4,000 hogs were raised annually with an emphasis on breeding stock and show pigs. For a Forbes magazine article Ted said, “I always wanted to have something on the side besides surgery. Since I already know something about raising hogs, I decided that was the natural thing to do.” Involvement in the local, state, and national pork community was a top priority for the Glunts and Graysons. They really had fun getting to know farmers from far and wide! To foster education, they hosted many visitors to the farm over the years and gave off-the-farm presentations. Ted served on the board of the IN Pork Producers Association, the planning committee for the World Pork Expo, and the IN State Swine Health Advisory Committee. In 2005, he and Rosanna received the Purdue University Dean’s Ovation Award for outstanding contributions to the College of Science. Over the years, the couple shared the milestones, the everyday moments, and many Sheridan HS athletic events in support of the extended Glunt family children and grandchildren. They cherished a mutual love with their honorary granddaughter Sheila Glunt Downey.
Ted’s at-home hours were happily devoted to his wife and children. He was frequently sought out for medical counsel by neighbors, friends, and relatives. He delighted in working in his home shop, the garage, and the yard. He also appreciated being able to share Meridian Hills Country Club with his family and friends for over 52 yrs. Ted served as a deacon and then an elder at Second Presbyterian Church. Retirement began with Ted going to the farm every weekday with a packed lunch to work on building and equipment repair. He had such a good time! Retirement also meant more time for community involvement. As a member of Executive Service Corps (ESC), Ted mentored many small business owners and high school students. He served as a judge for Science fairs. He put together several slide programs which he presented to a variety of audiences. He served as an expert witness on behalf of doctors in legal cases relating to surgery. He attended weekly luncheon meetings of Carmel Rotary, Scientech, and Service Club (military veterans). He was a regular with two different breakfast groups of retired men.
All throughout their marriage, Ted and Rosanna balanced their own savored travels, cruises, day outings, and dining experiences with hours spent with warmly regarded longtime friends met under a variety of circumstances including “The Gang,” Winterwood neighbors, The Middletons, University organizations, and farm connections. They frequently recounted highlights of shared formal events as well as the stories and laughter shared over dinners with another couple or two. Entertaining at home with dinner followed by euchre happened often. The couple were frequent active participants at on-campus events at Indiana University, Ball State University, and Purdue University up to Rosanna’s death.
Ted’s last years as a widower echoed those of his father who was also a widower (twice for Pete) also dying at age 94. Although Ted never stopped deeply mourning the loss of his adored Rosanna, his four remaining years were punctuated by hours continuing to share reminiscences and laughter with friends – both new and old. Susie and Tom especially wish to express gratitude to each one of you who provided our dad those moments of respite from his profound grief. Thank you all so very much.
Ted lived life on his own terms with strong will and determination and on Dec. 2, 2020 he died the same way. Upon hearing the news a fellow farmer expressed, “He was one of a kind. That’s for sure.” Another person recalled the song, “I Did It My Way” to sum up Ted. Ted was funny and forthright with a keen, active mind and a commitment to excellence. Fully, joyfully, completely he embraced life! He embraced being a husband, father, grandfather, uncle, neighbor, friend, confidant, mentor, educator, community member, philanthropist, surgeon, lifelong farmer and medical advisor. Days before his death, Ted was awarded an IU Bicentennial Medal for distinguished and distinctive service in support of Indiana University’s mission.
Science dictates that we absolutely must not gather with you right now to share memories and tales of Ted. We have great sadness about missing an opportunity at this time to be together and honor Ted’s well-lived life. Instead, we ask you to first make a point of sharing your own amazing life stories with those you love. Second, you may choose to consider a contribution to the Ted L. Grayson, M.D. IU Kokomo Scholarship. This scholarship will be awarded annually to a full-time student enrolled in the School of Nursing, the Radiography program, the Medical Imaging Technology program, or a pre-health professional track in the School of Sciences at IU Kokomo. First consideration will be given to applicants from a working family farm and/or with active involvement in their high school agriculture classes and/or FFA. Memorial gifts may be made to the Indiana University Foundation with a note in the memo “Ted L. Grayson, M.D. IU Kokomo Scholarship.” Your check may be mailed to the IU Foundation P.O. Box 6460 Indianapolis, IN 46206-6460.
Ted’s final resting place is with his dear Rosanna at Crown Hill Cemetery.