Sweet, cheerful grandmother Fannie Grable consorted with prostitutes, juvenile delinquents, vagrants, petty criminals and strippers.
It started out as a hobby but it turned into a job.
As an interested spectator at Akron Municipal Court, Grable arrived early in the morning, took the same seat each day and remained until proceedings adjourned. Her first visit was in 1933 to support a neighbor during a domestic dispute. A recent widow, Grable found herself captivated by the human drama of the legal system.
“When I first came to court, it was just to pass the time and take my mind off my lonesomeness,” she once told an Akron reporter. “It was not long, however, before I got to feeling so sorry for the poor people that came in the court that I longed to be of some service to them.”
Grable returned to court and became a daily visitor. Judges and prosecutors began to acknowledge the petite onlooker clad in floral dresses and festive hats. Police officers called her “Ma Grable.” Court reporters described her as “pert,” “sprightly,” “jovial” and “a kindly little woman.”
Grable traced her interest in children’s welfare to her training as a teacher. Born in 1875 in Franklin County, Pa., she grew up in a farming community and presided over a little red schoolhouse.
“I taught children in one of those old one-room schools,” Grable recalled. “I learned how to handle them then, and I guess I haven’t forgotten.”
Courtroom spectator
She gave up teaching after marrying Akron engineer Earl J. Grable in 1900 and moving to Summit County. The couple had two children, Mabel and Ralph, and settled into a small home at 144 Roswell St. in Middlebury.
As a courtroom spectator, Grable took pity on some of the bedraggled defendants she saw during the Great Depression. She collected used clothing and donated it to those who looked like they needed it most. She took in orphans during the winter, invited vagrants to her home for supper and offered grandmotherly advice to juvenile delinquents.
“Many of those people’s troubles could be traced indirectly to poverty,” she said.
Judge Charles M. Kelly took note of Grable’s compassion and asked her in 1934 if she would be interested in looking out for the welfare of a “wayward woman.” Yes, indeed, she certainly would. The prostitute was paroled to Grable for six months and met with her weekly as she tried to straighten out her life.
Soon other judges began to ask for Grable’s help. If a man got sentenced to jail, Grable looked after his family. If a couple had domestic troubles, Grable gave counsel. If a teen committed a crime, Grable provided maternal guidance.
Akron’s No. 1 court spectator became the first probation officer for Akron Municipal Court.
Before she knew it, she was handling 50 cases a month — and she didn’t even have an office. It was a volunteer position for five years.
A Christmas gift
In 1940, the Akron City Council insisted that Grable be paid for her work. Grable reluctantly agreed, but balked at the $50 monthly salary (about $850 today) that judges proposed. She instead accepted $20 to cover expenses.
She enjoyed many success stories and few repeat offenders. Grable was thrilled when former clients stopped her on the street to thank her for helping them when they needed it most.
One day before Christmas in 1940, a handsome man in a military uniform knocked on her front door.
“Don’t you know me, Mrs. Grable?” he asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why, I’m Joseph.”
Grable looked closer. This was the boy who had been placed on probation on a charge of suspicion because he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. His parents had separated and refused to let him live with them. The boy was dirty, ragged and homeless.
“Maybe the Army is the answer for you,” she suggested.
Days later, he enlisted.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the clean-cut soldier on her doorstep six months later. She took him to the police station to show him off.
“I never expected the transformation which I saw yesterday,” she told the Beacon Journal. “He was immaculate and his manners were perfect. … It was the best thing that could have happened to me for Christmas.”
Questioning showgirls
One of Grable’s cherished keepsakes was a lace handkerchief that she received in the mail in 1942.
A former client, 22, had planned to give it to her as a birthday present, but he was killed in a car crash.
Accompanying the package was a note in a woman’s scrawl: “I am enclosing the little handkerchief that my son got for you some time before his death. He always appreciated your interest in him, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for him.”
During World War II, Akron Mayor George J. Harter asked Grable to investigate the showgirls at the Gayety Theater on South Main Street downtown.
Someone had accused the burlesque club of luring defense workers from war plants, swapping riveting guns for G-strings.
It was a comical scene when Ma Grable entered the theater to question strippers wearing exotic costumes.
“As she reached the wings, blond show girls gaily cascaded off the stage and milled around the investigator,” the Beacon Journal reported. “Lining up each girl, Officer Grable proceeded to grill them about their ages, their show experience, whether they had given up war jobs for the footlights.”
“Where is your home, dear?” she asked a stripper named Peggy.
“My home is my suitcase,” Peggy replied, drawing giggles from the other girls.
“I don’t believe you are 25.”
“I’ve been married only twice.” More giggles.
Grable left the Gayety, convinced that Rosie the Riveter was not a part of the act.
Calling it quits
Judges gradually increased Grable’s expenses to $85 a month. She still attended court every day in her mid-70s, although the caseload had diminished.
“Do I plan to retire soon? No, sir, not so long as I can continue helping those in trouble,” she vowed in 1950.
One morning, court employees noticed Ma Grable was missing from her usual seat.
She took a rare day off in 1951 to recuperate from shock after a hooligan dropped a firecracker from the fourth floor of the police station and it detonated next to her feet.
The next shock was worse. In 1952, Judge Abner D. Zook announced a plan to reclassify Grable as a part-time worker so the city could hire a full-time, specially trained probation officer.
An indignant Grable resigned immediately.
“I knew I might as well quit before a lot of trouble developed over it,” she said.
Part time? That was an insult to the work she had done.
“It was no more part time than the judges’ jobs,” she fumed. “When they were there, so was I.”
After nearly 20 years, Akron’s No. 1 court spectator called it quits.
In fragile health, Fannie Grable was 84 in 1959 when she fell and broke her hip. She died a few weeks later and was buried next to her husband, Earl, at Uniontown Greenlawn Cemetery.
The final gavel sounded. Court was adjourned.
Copy editor Mark J. Price is author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.