A 78-year-old grandmother found dead after she and her adult daughter disappeared on their way to a neighborhood store is being remembered as strong and feisty.

Patricia Gardner Dennis and daughter, 59-year-old Teresa Lynn Fisher, left their Deatsville home about 5:30 p.m. Saturday and were not seen or heard from again until Tuesday when they were found parked on the side of Interstate 65 in Chilton County.

Dennis was dead inside the vehicle. Fisher remains hospitalized.

“She was very sassy. She’s the one that raised me since I was 2 years old,’’ 32-year-old Keith Hughes said of his grandmother. “She never met a stranger. She was going to tell you how it is.”

Hughes said his grandmother suffered with dementia. His mother, he said, lives with short-term memory loss. Both lived with Hughes’ grandfather, who is blind and physically disabled.

Mother and daughter left together to go to a gas station about a mile from their Autauga County home to get cigarettes.

“It was getting dark and of course they got lost,’’ Hughes said. “I think they just got lost and were trying to find their way back up and down Highway 31,’’ he said.

“The way I believe my mom’s mind was working, she may have remembered she was pulling out of the gas station heading home five minutes ago, but every five minutes she’s thinking she just pulled out of the gas station,’’ Hughes said.

“In reality, she could have been driving for three or four hours thinking she just left the gas station five minutes ago.”

License plate readers showed the family’s Toyota Avalon was as far north as Vestavia Hills at one point. That reading was at 2 a.m. Sunday.

It’s not clear where they traveled next, but Chilton County Sheriff John Shearon said the pair was found Tuesday when they received a 911 call requesting medical assistance. The vehicle was on Interstate 65 southbound near mile marker 214.

Dennis was pronounced dead on the scene. Fisher was hospitalized.

Authorities said there was no wreck and no sign of foul play. They are awaiting results autopsy to determine how Dennis died.

Hughes said he believed his mother and grandmother pulled over during a storm.

Investigators are still trying to piece together other details of the 72 hours they were missing, such as when did they park on I-65 and had they eaten.

“All of these questions we’ve got to get answered,’’ said Autauga Sheriff Mark Harrell.

Hughes said the time his grandmother and mother were missing was difficult. “It sucked really,’’ he said.

Then once they were found, he had to break the news to his grandfather, who had been married to Dennis for more than 60 years.

“He passed out, and busted his head, so now he’s in the hospital too,’’ Hughes said.

His mother remains hospitalized for evaluation, and they are working to get her into a longer-term facility.

“She’s aware that my grandmother is gone, but it’s so much harder on her because she’s find out her mom has died every five minutes,’’ Hughes said.

Hughes said his grandmother’s health had been rapidly declining.

“I told my grandfather even if they didn’t go missing, I feel she would probably passed away at home,’’ he said. “It doesn’t matter where you are, what you’re doing, when it’s your time, it’s your time.”

Hughes said he’s so grateful for all his grandmother did for him and he will miss her.

“She definitely didn’t spare giving me the backhand when I needed it,’’ he said, “and I’m so very thankful for every tooth knocked down the back of my throat – well not literally.”

He said he has been trying to get help for his family for the past year, to no avail. Now, he said, DHR is working to help him place his grandfather into some kind of assisted living facility.

“I don’t know how to take all of it,’’ he said, “but God’s given me peace in my soul.”