Before Gresham began his career in outdoor journalism, he was on the roster of the Cubs' Shelby, North Carolina farm team but never played.[4][5] His son, Tom Gresham, learned of the baseball offer from the Cubs several years after his father's death while looking through old family records. "He went to work to take care of his young family ... I wonder how much it hurt him to make that decision. So much that he never, ever told us he was signed by the Cubs."[6]
In 1944, Gresham married the former Mary Eleanor Ryan (July 4, 1925 – March 5, 2001). She was a Roman Catholic, and he was a Baptist; they wed in a Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee while he was in between military assignments. In their first thirteen years of marriage, they had a different address each Christmas. Mary became an excellent cook by necessity and assisted her husband on his assignments with the use of her memory, note-taking, and photographic skills.[6]
In an interview with U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan, Gresham reported that Reagan, as a fledgling radio announcer, had once used a Colt pistol to save a nurse in Des Moines, Iowa from a mugging on a street. The nurse later confirmed the story but had not known that it was Reagan who had saved her.[7]
Fishing and the wetlands
Gresham was among the first to sound the alarm about the loss of wetlands in Louisiana. He worked with Ray Scott, the founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, to halt the cheating that had previously haunted tournament bass fishing. Gresham's Kiss the Land Goodbye was one of the early works about vanishing wetlands.[3]
Gresham's The Complete Book of Bass Fishing is, according to Ray Scott, "the best book ever written on bass fishing." Gresham wrote a column for Scott's Bassmaster magazine pro bono.[3]
Death and legacy
Gresham died at his home on Cane River Lake in Natchitoches, a small city in north central Louisiana, of complications from Alzheimer's disease – pneumonia and infection. He had spent most of his last year in a nursing home in Natchitoches. In addition to his children, he was survived by three sisters, Rosa Schemmel of Wichita, Kansas, and Edith Kelley and Ruth Bedingfield of Ware Shoals in northwestern South Carolina. Gresham's son Tom Gresham is a noted radio and podcast personality and a 2nd Amendment advocate.[citation needed] Among Gresham's pallbearers was State RepresentativeRick Nowlin of Natchitoches.
Gary Garth, the outdoor editor of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, relates that he became "addicted" to duck hunting as a child, based on the encouragement of Grits Gresham columns. "Through my work I've had the opportunity to meet, hunt, and fish with a few of the giants in my business. But I never met Grits. It's just as well. Some pedestals should remain untouched," Garth said in his tribute to the legendary outdoorsman.[9]
Joe Macaluso, outdoor editor of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate recalled a fishing trip with Gresham on Toledo Bend Reservoir at the Texas-Louisiana boundary. Macaluso described Gresham as "the most famous of all Louisiana outdoors writers and media members... He was like a loaf of good French bread, crusty-hard on the outside and tender on the inside. When I told him that, he laughed [and said] 'Don’t tell anyone else'..."[8]
The Gresham Collection is located at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation in Natchitoches.[3]