Person:Catherine Dick (2)

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The following is taken from a talk by Kaye Grant at Catherine Grant's Funeral

In 1906 John Taylor Dick, living in Tooele Utah with a wife and eight children, was called on a mission for the LDS church to Scotland. At the age of 50 years old, John packed his bags and went back to his native homeland of Scotland. While he was there, he converted nine people to the church, among which was the Faulds family. While he was there serving on a mission, his wife back in Tooele wrote him and informed him that she was divorcing him and would not be sending him anymore money. So John ended up moving in with relatives who were still there in Scotland. They supported him while he finished serving his mission.

After his mission, John returned back to Tooele where he continued to do more missionary work, while he grew a vegatable and fruit garden. At one point he paid the way for one of the Fauld's sons, William, to come over to America, namely SLC, Utah. When William arrived John asked him, if he thought his sister Mary Faulds would accept a marriage proposal. William told John to write and ask her. Mary accepted. Mary and her mother came to America, and went straight down to Tooele. John and Mary were civilly married (he was 56, she was 31), because she had to be in America one year before they could be married in the LDS Temple. A year later Catherine was born, and the three of them were sealed together in the Salt Lake Temple.

Catherine Dick has a loving mother who taught her all the Scottish songs, dances, the Scottish brogue and poems. Catherine was an avid memorizer of poetry; she especially loved the Scottish poems.

When Catherine was five years old, the family moved up to Salt Lake City, up on the avenues. She had a sister then: Agnes; then James came along, followed by the twins. The largest twin was smothered in birth and died. The smallest baby, Mary, survived due to Catherine's Aunt Agnes who came in from Tooele and worked with her all night to keep her alive. John bought a family plot of land up in City cemetery, where the older twin was buried. It is a large plot of land where most of the family is currently buried.

While they lived on the Avenues, John became the head gardener for the Salt Lake Temple grounds and church buildings. In his own backyard, John grew a productive garden of fruits and vegetables. Often the native Americans,(with whom John was good friends) would come from far distances to trade for his produce, especially his watermelon. Catherine would often sit and listen as her father would bargain with them. Her mother, Mary, would cook dinner and feed these friends, before they would leave and travel back home with large watermelons on their back. The Dick's neighbors, would hide in their homes, behind curtains, in fear. They were scared of these Native Americans who came to see their beloved friend John. Catherine was intrigued by the neighbor's fear of these Native Americans.

When Catherine was 12, her father was called again on another mission. This was to be a six-month mission to the Mid-West. While John was gone her mother became quite ill with kidney stones, so her father was called home. It was by the bedside of her mother, that Catherine learned to make bread. At one point in the illness, her mother was hospitalized at the LDS Hospital. One evening, Catherine was taken by her father to see her mother. She talked with her, and had no idea that her mother was dying. The next day her father brought her mother's belongings home and told her that her mother was dead.

So at the age of 13, Catherine Dick became a homemaker and a mother to her younger sister Mary, who was age 5. Catherine tried to go to school at night (she would even bring Mary along) but this did not work out too well.

Six years later her father (at the age of 77) died of stomach cancer. Catherine was 20. Before he passed on, her Aunt Agnes again came up from Tooele to help Catherine care for her father. Because it was in the heat of July, they would hang up wet bed sheets to the windows, and turn on an electric fan to cool his room down, because he was in such pain from the cancer and the heat. After her father died, Catherine worked for McDonald's Candy Company or wherever she could make an extra dime.

Three years later Catherine was set up on a blind date with a friend of hers where she was introduced to Clive Parkin Grant. The date was an afternoon of rabbit hunting. She and Clive walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. Finally, at one point she asked to sit down and rest for a few minutes. That was their beginning: rabbit hunting.

Catherine and Clive dated for about a year. Clive gave her an engagement ring on Valentine's day. His mother was a little upset that he would propose on Valentine's day. Nevertheless, Catherine and his mother, Mary Jane Parkin, became the best of friends.

They were married on November 18, 1935 by President Heber J. Grant, Clive's father's (Joseph Crumb Grant) Uncle. They went on their honeymoon to San Francisco, because there was a baker's convention there that Clive needed to attend. They took Mary Jane Parkin with them. Catherine and Mary Jane went about touring, while Clive learned about the bakery business. Mary Jane became a second mother for Catherine. Every Thanksgiving, Mary Jane and Joseph Crumb Grant would come over for dinner because they loved Catherine's cooking. Catherine, in spite of everything, had learned to cook very well.

During their early marriage, Catherine taught a religion class (now called seminary). Sadly, many of the boys she taught went out to war and never returned alive. She was always sad and bothered by that. Both Catherine and Clive stayed busy and active in the LDS church.

Four years after they were married, Catherine Kaye Grant was born. At Kaye's birth, Catherine had toxemia poisoning. She came home on Christmas day with Kaye, but was taken back to the hospital, and was said to certainly die. But she didn't. She survived to even have two more children: both sons - Raymond Clive Grant and Lynn Dick Grant. After Lynn was born she was advised to not have any more children.

In 1960, Clive and Catherine built there own house in the Mill Creek Area of SLC, Utah. They were able to move into their home on July 24th, 1960, one of the hottest years on record. They ended up staying in the basement most evenings due to the extreme heat.

During the last 20 years, of her life, Catherine, Clive, and 2 of their children, Kaye and Ray, were able to travel all around the world. Catherine wanted to see and learn all she could about the world, but her health often impeded her. She had an angina heart, which caused quite a bit of pain, as well as bursitis and calcium deposits on her head, hands, and feet, which were removed quite often, only to come back. When she was unable to go on tours, her children would run in and take pictures to show her when they got back on the buses or back to the hotel rooms. Catherine and Clive would often visit their youngest son Lynn who served in the military and his family in Alaska, Colorado and many other places.

One time she was able to visit her ancestral land of Scotland. While they were there they found some cemetery plots where some of her aunts had been buried back in 1910/11: the family members that never made it to the States.

Catherine stayed active and busy throughout her life with a myriad of projects and activities. She joined the Alva Keller Camp of the Daughters of Pioneers. She even served for a time as President. She would often take trips and have dinners with the group and their husbands from the Sons of Pioneers. She would paint and make figurines for gifts and make dish towels from flour sacks from Clive's bakery. She often made decorations of all sorts for many different holidays. She was even a gifted tea leaf reader and fortune teller; in fact she was quite accurate, it scared her when there were bad readings. She preferred to bring happiness and sunshine into others lives.

The last year of her life was difficult. She suffered from a stroke and a broken hip. Her hip was repaired and doing fine. But this was the beginning of the end. Many of her days were good, and many were bad. During her last month of life, she missed Clive who had passed away 9 years previously. She missed him so terribly, and finally she was able to join with him again when she passed away July 20, 2002.