Granite City woman stars in 5 generation photos times 3

Virginia Brown Brasfield, of Granite City, went through a lot before landing in her family’s recent five-generation photo.

She survived a tornado, three episodes of breast cancer, a broken knee, broken shoulder and broken back.

But here she is, about to turn 89 on April 2, sitting across the table from sleeping 8-week-old Elliot Danielle Yovandich, born Jan. 21.

“It’s great to see a great-great granddaughter,” said Virginia, a petite woman with a busy life. “I told (great-granddaughter) Jourdan she had to hurry up while I was still living so we can get a picture.”

How long had Virginia been talking up the five-generation photo?

“Since before I got pregnant,” said Jourdan Yovandich, a pediatric nurse at Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis.

Virginia, who has eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, is proud to be part of three five-generation photos.

In a 1928 photo, she was the tow-headed toddler on the lap of her mother, Annie Laura Murley Brown. They sat alongside Grandpa Bob Murley, Great-Grandpa Mack Murley, and a great-great grandfather, whose name Virginia did not know.

“I was not living with them and around them,” she said. “I never lived with my mother that I can remember. I lived with my dad. I have a younger sister. My mother and dad separated. Me and my sister lived with my aunt for a while, then Dad took me. My mom and I were close. It wasn’t a long distance. We went to visit all the time. They got along. There were never any hard feelings.”

Virginia grew up in Tennessee, near the Arkansas border.

“I lived in a little town called Ripley, believe it or not,” she said.

“Tell her how much you like tornadoes,” said granddaughter Beth Sparks.

“When I was 8 years old, our house was destroyed by a tornado,” Virginia said. “I had a stepmother and my brother (Bobby) was 2. We were in the dining room having dinner and the back door flew open. Dad asked me to close it, but it wouldn’t close. He had to hold it. We were all around the table. We didn’t have electricity, just oil lamps. The wind picked the house up. I remember the lights going out and the dishes hitting the floor. I started to get up and it started roaring again.

“The next thing I knew I could hear Dad and my stepmother calling me. They found us under the floor. I wasn’t hurt too bad. They thought they were going to lose my brother.”

“Instead, the Korean War got him,” said Kathy Poston, Virginia’s daughter.

Virginia and husband Robie moved to Madison in 1953.

“He was out of work and my half-sister and her husband lived here,” she said. “They asked us to come up. He got a job with Millstone (construction).”

Virginia and her family traveled back to Ripley for a five-generation photo in November 1991.

“We went there all the time,” said Kathy, an administrative assistant for the Salvation Army. “Family lived there. We went back to see her mom. Jourdan was four weeks old. We took the baby so everybody could see her. We had it all set up and had the photo done at her house. Jourdan was three when Mama died.”

Virginia, the mother of five , grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of 12, worked 37 years as a secretary at the Salvation Army in St. Louis.

“They were very good to me there,” she said. “I guess they liked me.”

“Mother and Dad had to work all the time to take care of five kids,” Kathy said. “We had chores. Peel potatoes, start supper, whatever needed to be done. I hated it when Dad was home. He’d say, ‘You missed a spot.’”

Mother and daughter, who now live together, don’t worry too much about chores.

“She does her thing; I do my thing,” Kathy said. “Some nights we are in bed by 7:30.”

Granddaughter Beth Sparks grew up across the street from her grandparents. She made sure that her grandparents took her along when they went fishing on weekends at Lake Shelbyville.

“We caught fish, cleaned fish, cooked fish, but I never ate them,” Virginia said.

Beth liked her grandparents’ deep-fried fish, but liked Grandma’s salisbury steak for special occasions.

“She used to make them for me for my birthday,” said Beth, the mother of three who works at Washington University. “She was always so classy. She dressed nice and had a huge jewelry box. She took care of Grandpa. She waited on him hand and foot.”

“My husband died in ’96, February 26,” Virginia said. “He had a heart transplant in ’86 and lived till 1996. Three months later, my youngest son (Larry) ws killed in a car accident. Another son (Steve) lived in Denver. He died in his sleep in 2006.”

For the past 20 years, Virginia has been a regular at bingo games.

“I play 12 cards at a time,” she said. “If it’s paper, where you use a dobber, I play 24.”

“I can’t even do six,” said Beth.

The most Virginia has ever won at bingo?

“$500. The other night I won $295. I have senior bingo I go to and regular bingo at church. I am free on Mondays and Fridays.”

A healthy diet doesn’t figure in to Virginia’s reasonably good health. Her favorite snack? Pretzel M&Ms.

But something else does.

“She’s very active,” said daughter Kathy. “She still drives.”

That’s part of Virginia’s game plan.

“Stay busy,” she said. “It’s important to keep doing things. If you do nothing, it will get to where you can’t do anything. Just move around a lot.”

This story was originally published March 27, 2016 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Granite City woman stars in 5 generation photos times 3."