Elaine Haddy

Granny, the Mad Scientist, and her helpers

Elaine Haddy

  • Age: 61
  • Lives in: Iowa City
  • Occupation: University of Iowa associate director of Human Resources
  • Favorite Thing: Hanging out with her grandchildren

Now that Elaine Haddy is a grandmother she gets to laugh at all the silly things her grandchildren do. In fact, that’s her favorite thing to do.

Some wonder what they’ll do with their retirement. Not Haddy, who is starting to move in that direction right now. She wants to spend all the time she can with her grandchildren — Nick, 8, Will, 6, Evelyn, 3, and Marty, 1.

When the kids come to visit, they walk in the door, and “We say, ‘We are going to have F-U-N,’” Haddy said.

One of their favorite activities is experiments.

Haddy and the kids like to whip up potion water in the sinks — usually a combination of soaps and dyes.

One day, Will decided to pick up grandma’s cell phone and drop it in the water. When the experiment wound down, they drained the sinks and sure enough, there was Grandma’s phone.

Destroyed.

“(Will) said, ‘I thought your phone would like the potion water,’” Nick said.

Many people would pull their hair out at a time like that, but not Haddy. She laughs about it … now.

“When you’re the mom you have to be doing laundry and paying bills, but when you’re the grandma, it can all be F-U-N,” she said.

— Brian Morelli