Ben Griffith
Ben Griffith, the husband of the late Rev. Jessie Griffith, 95, died Aug. 9, 2017. A Memorial Service was held Nov. 4 at Kindley Assisted Living at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg.
Ben H. Griffith Jr. was born on a homestead near Nera Vista, NM, Sept. 11, 1921, to Benjamin Harrison Griffith and Ethel Drena West. He had a brother and sister.
He grew up in Pueblo, Colo., and graduated from the Pueblo Community College. He and Jessie Grisham, whom he met at the Wesley Foundation at the University of Colorado, married in 1945, the year he graduated with a BS in electrical engineering.
They moved to Wisconsin where two sons were born, then to Baltimore in 1950 to work at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where he worked for 40 years. Another son was born in 1950, and after his retirement and a move to Columbia in 1961, their last son was born.
He told his sons many stories throughout the years he worked for Westinghouse, said fourth son, Daniel, “and some of the important projects he worked on.”
He was supportive of Jessie Griffith’s call to ministry in 1971, and her pursuit of the degrees for nearly a decade that led to her ordination as an Elder in 1981.
Throughout their lifetimes, the Griffiths were very active in the United Methodist Church. Ben Griffith sang in the choirs in the churches she served, which included Alberta Gary UMC and Mount Zion UMC in Finksburg. He occasionally preached as a lay leader.
Griffith was a devoted father and active with his sons at the YMCA of Greater Baltimore, and as president of the Dads and Sons Association for the YMCA Camp. He was treasurer of the Glen Elg PTA. He and the boys gardened side by side and did projects around the house. He once built a model train platform with lit-up houses, recalled Dan Griffith.
The Griffiths moved to Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, and when his wife moved into the Wilson Health Care Center in 2016, he moved into Kindley Assisted Living. She died in March 2016 after 71 years of marriage.
Survivors include four sons, Ben H. III, Andrew David, Stanley Paul and Daniel Jesse Griffith of Sterling, Va.