Lawrence Joseph Gribben

LAWRENCE JOSEPH GRIBBEN, 86, died sitting at the table that he had built in the home he had built with the love of his life for the past 65 years sitting across from him on Saturday, May 20, 2023. It’s pretty much exactly as he would’ve wanted to go, and capped a lifetime of doing things his way. Born November 9, 1936, Larry was the youngest of seven children born to Walter Joseph and Nellie Marie Taffe Gribben. From an early age he displayed a lust for life, learning, adventure and nature. He spent his youth exploring in the woods and going hunting with family and friends. A neighbor introduced him to Boy Scouts in which he thrived and rose to the ranks of Eagle Scout before becoming a scout leader himself later in life. Benefitting from only one working eye, and being dyslexic with (likely) ADD—back in a time when nobody heard of those terms—he faced his challenges. His school work was never exemplary, but his hunger to learn everything he could never wavered. Graduating from Central Catholic High School in 1955, he enjoyed the fact that he could now study what he really cared about at WVU—forestry, geology and other earth sciences. On a weekend home, his dad forced him to take a break from working at Dieckmann’s Nursery to attend a dance at Wheeling Park. There he met the woman he proclaimed he’d marry one day, Joan Marie Wolf Gribben. He was right. Though he never earned his degree, he would go on to open & manage several businesses including a gas station, butcher shop, Chicken Dog restaurant, and finally Ye Olde Renovators. He also worked over the years as a milkman, coal miner, foreman at the former Blaw Knox factory, manager/partner of PosiClean Chemicals and Interstate Pump Company. But Larry would count his and Joan’s greatest accomplishments being the five children they created and nurtured with immense love, humor and his occasional bad influence. For instance, when he told his kids to pet the elephants at the circus, had them play in the water at a lake in Florida (who knew there were gators?), and when he jumped into a huge pit of rusted beer cans after consuming one too many at a pig roast. He was a master at telling my mom how to cut her homemade bread, a connoisseur of past-date leftover concoctions that he somehow couldn’t get anyone else to try, and thought very little rivaled liver and onions, white cake with white icing, a glass of Glenfiddich and a good cigar. Along with Joan, he leaves to cherish his memory: Lawrence Kevin Gribben, Kimberly Ann (Bud) Hughes, Kirk Joseph (Melinda) Gribben, Kellie Marie (Dave) Forrester, and Kristine Joan (Steve) Roberts. He also leaves behind six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren: Joshua (Katie) Hughes and their three children Eli, Addie & Maggie; Michael Garrick Boyd and his two children Reece & Kendel; Daniel Lawrence (Merandia) Forester; Hannah Marie Forester (Nathan Smitley); Cole Andrew (Cassidy) Roberts; and Bailey Elizabeth Roberts (Nikolaus Anderson-Euker). He was preceded in death by his parents, brothers Walter, Paul, Jack and Robert Gribben and sisters Mary Catherine Schlag and Helen Marie Gribben. In lieu of mourning, Larry asks that you remember him by eating good food, playing cards, laughing with family & friends and voting “that idiot out of office”. Arrangements are entrusted to Altmeyers Funeral Home. A service will be held at the convenience of the family.