Actual Factual Georgia

Q: What became of Lewis Grizzard’s widow and her daughter Jordan?

—Frank Burnette, Decatur

A: Dedra Grizzard stays busy managing her late husband’s intellectual property rights, which sounds like something Lewis Grizzard could have used for joke. But approaching the 20th anniversary of his death, the former newspaper columnist, author, funny man and defender of UGA — and most things Southern — remains popular with his fans, both old and new. “The older people who remember him have passed along their love of Lewis to their kids and grandkids,” Dedra said during a recent phone conversation. “Also, a lot of people who didn’t appreciate him when they were younger, appreciate him now that they’re older. I didn’t really appreciate Lewis’ work until I was in my 40s. I didn’t see him as the politically incorrect observer of the ever-changing South until I was older.” Dedra married Grizzard, a native Georgian who worked for the both the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal before they merged, four days before his death on March 20, 1994. He was 47. She was 33 and his fourth wife, but she had taken care of him in the years leading up to his death and now takes care of him in death. Dedra is 53 now and working on a musical based on the book, “My Daddy Was a Pistol and I Am A Son of a Gun,” and also collaborates with Bill Oberst Jr., who performs a tribute show at theaters around the South. Dedra, who lives in Buckhead and also works for Shelley Kyle Inc., had a daughter named Jordan from a previous marriage who often would sit in Grizzard’s lap while he wrote his columns on a typewriter. She’s now 25 years old, a college graduate who is heavily involved in sustainable farming in Santa Cruz, Calif. “Lewis would be proud,” Dedra said. She married again after Grizzard’s death and had another daughter named Anna Belle, who is 16 and lives in Madison with Dedra’s ex-husband. “Lewis was just Lewis to me,” she said. “When I met him, I had no idea how big he was. No idea.”