Mrs. Graffis was born in 1898 "in Pulaski County, near Star City, Indiana. "I was a farmer's daughter, then a farmer's wife. When I was still at my father's home I gave music lessons and I worked out at $3.00 a week. As a farmer's wife I raised chickens, milked cows, made garden, took care of three children, etc., in Cass County, Indiana. At church I was pianist for ten or twelve years. I enjoyed Ladies Aid at church and made many friends. I belonged to Home Ec club where the lessons were a help in homemaking and I made a lot of friends there." She vividly recalled in a 1984 interview, "Washing dishes for eleven people, baking pies for the family every Saturday after I was twelve. I sorta dreaded to milk cows." She also fondly remembers, "My boys ran their little tractors under the table." She was concerned in the early 1980s about the "money it will take to take care of me since I am going blind. I always think about my health - whether I'll have to go to a hospital or nursing home. I seem so helpless to what I used to be, but I can still mostly take care of myself and be friends with others."
Source: Raymond Bial, There is a Season, Champaign County Nursing Home, 1984.