Walter Roy Grattan

Walter Roy Grattan was born on February 6, 1928 in Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan. He was the firstborn son of three boys and one girl. His little sister died of malnutrition at the age of eleven months. Grandpa Grattan had a hard life as a child. His parents were both alcoholics, and they spent the majority of their money on alcohol. The family was very poor. Grandpa tells the story of when he was about five years old and his grandmother sent him to the corner store along with his little brother for a few items, among which were wooden matches and bread. On the way home he and his brother got into a fight and somehow the matches began smoldering. This made the bread, in the sack along with the matches, smell and taste like smoke. When they got home they found out that they would have to eat the bread anyway, even though neither boy could stand the smell or the taste.

At the tender age of twelve, Grandpa got a job to help support the family. First he worked in a tire shop. Then, when he was thirteen, he worked at a fruit stand, mainly unloading fruit from trucks. Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen he worked for a civil engineer at a surveying company, measuring small streams in one hundred foot increments, putting in stakes every one hundred feet. After that he went to work full time at a factory called Mueller Brass. He did office work there because he wasn't old enough to work in the factory.

Grandpa attended Catholic schools and hated it. The nuns were mean, and whenever Grandpa tried to ask questions regarding religion, they told him that he shouldn't be asking such questions. They refused to answer him. His parents never went to church; they just dropped off Grandpa and his brothers. Because of the treatment he got from the nuns and because he had little encouragement from his parents, he never believed in the doctrines of the Catholic Church. After he was married, he began searching for another religion. He finally found what he was looking for when my mother was five years old.

Grandpa quit school after ninth grade and worked until he was old enough to join the Air Force. That was where he got his education. While stationed in Alaska he met my grandmother, and they were married soon after. They have been married now for forty-six years and have raised six children. All are alive and well, and have provided Grandpa and Grandma with thirty-one grandchildren. Grandpa and Grandma live in the Mojave Desert in California, and have four of their six children living close by.

Grandpa retired eleven years ago. He and Grandma are devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They have spent their retirement years serving the Lord. From 1989 through 1991 they served a genealogical mission in Salt Lake City. Now they work in the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles one week out of each month. In their spare time they enjoy traveling all over the United States and Canada.