Dean, maybe you can find a friend or someone close that records, and see if they are willing to help you. You might be in a good position if you let them use a couple pieces of gear in your studio.
I'm sure you're making your grandfather very proud of you for not thinking about selling the gear.
The back of the cbs and universal audio gear, they are called 'terminal strips'. You should have a 'hot' 'cold' and 'ground' connections, and you can easy rig that up by cutting a normal mic cable. Also, vintageking.com sells pre-cut ones and they are called 'pigtails'. Here are female and male versions of it here:
Pigtails Mogami 1' XLR-M/spade pigtail | VintageKing.com