MILESTONES: Payoff comes early for homeowner

At first, Jody Grantham didn’t know she’d stopped paying her mortgage.

She’d been going about life as usual: Working in the pharmacy at Sam’s Club in Douglasville. Coming home to Rod, her husband of 20 years, and the cozy, low-slung brown house with a high-flying American flag out front where she’d raised daughters Shanda and Alexia. Nothing very out-of-the-ordinary or ripped-from-the-housing-crisis headlines about any of it.

Until the day the letter arrived.

“It said, ‘You have paid your house off, call this number,’ ” said Grantham, 50, who dialed as directed. “I remember, I sat right there on the couch and said to the little lady, ‘I love you.’”

This wasn’t one of those deals that sounds too good to be true, and —- because it’s actually a cleverly disguised come-on for satellite TV or a time share in Yemen —- is. Rather the letter and phone conversation put a period on a story that used to be written regularly in the United States. Before we all started gobbling up houses like they were some newfangled brand of “healthy” potato chip. Those hidden high calories and interest rates always come back to bite you in the you-know-what.

Unless you’re Jody Grantham. Unlike someone nearly everyone knows these days, she didn’t run out of money to pay her mortgage.

She ran out of mortgage.

“I went to make my final payment and didn’t even realize it,” said Grantham, who thought she still had several months to go.

Her confusion stemmed from what she presumes was a long-ago act of parental love. She’d bought the house in little Winston (est. population now: 7,100) in 1979, not long before marrying her first husband. They divorced after seven years, and sometime after that, Grantham mentioned to her parents that she’d been late in making a house payment. Until recently, she’d forgotten they’d suggested they could provide a cushion by paying several months ahead for her.

“She thinks that Mom and Daddy helped her and they didn’t tell her,” said her sister, OraLee Lewallen, 62, of East Point.

Lee and Lois Marks are both deceased. But their four daughters inherited their belief in hard work and solid roots as the way to build equity in good, satisfying lives. The Marks owned the same house in Austell for decades. Their restaurant, the Feed Mill, was a Buckhead institution before McMansions and yuppie bars took over the neighborhood. Lois Marks gave affectionate nicknames to the regulars who feasted on Lee’s Catheads (biscuits) and Sawmill Gravy and banana pudding. Youngest child Jody worked there so much while growing up that when she spied a newspaper ad offering new homes in Douglas County, she had enough money saved to make the $1,000 down payment and still have a bit left over.

For 29-plus years, she worked at her restaurant, fast-food or big-box store job, raised her kids (teen Alexia still lives at home while Shanda, 24, works at Red Lobster and rents her own place) and made the same monthly mortgage payment of $284.56 (“It felt like a fortune, but try telling people that now … “). At the same place: The drive-through window of Douglas County Savings & Loan. At some point, the bank was sold and changed its name to BB&T. The mortgage industry went monster and then nearly down under. But until that letter arrived a few months ago, Grantham’s routine never changed.

The most some people can congratulate themselves for these days is not getting foreclosed on. Grantham’s well aware of that. So while she and Rod went out for a celebratory dinner and sent a copy of the paid-off mortgage to her sister in Tennessee, she also said a silent prayer for society’s more house-poor.

She’s not about to trade up for a bigger place or go all “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on us. Definitely a new American flag each year for the pole she bought Rod last Father’s Day. Also: “I’m hoping to win the lottery and get new siding and new carpet.”

She hasn’t forgotten whose daughter she is.

“I’m going to say this is home,” Grantham said, finally allowing a note of quiet pride to creep into her voice. “I’ve already told Shanda this will be her home someday if she likes it.”

“Milestones” covers significant events and times in the lives of metro Atlantans. Big or small, hugely celebrated or known only to a few —- tell us of a milestone we should write about at: jvejnoska@ajc.com or mail it to Milestones, c/o Jill Vejnoska, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303. Please include your phone number and/or e-mail address.