Grant Christensen

Grant Myrthan Christensen passed away peacefully on November 11, 2014 in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. He was born February 28, 1926 in Delta, Utah, in a two-bedroom farmhouse without electricity, or a bathroom, to Edward Peter Christensen and Ida Bennett.

Born the seventh child in a family of eight, he is preceded in death by his parents; by all of his siblings: Martha Castina Roundy (Dee), Merlin Deloy Christensen (Martha), Lindeau Christensen (Shirley), Edward Christensen (Ruth), Ida Alvey (Lou), Ether Joseph Christensen, and Bernard L. Christensen (Rosie).

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne Marie Steinagel, and six children: Cheryl Rasmussen (Scott), Steven Christensen (Stephanie), Michele Lemmon (Thomas), Mark Christensen (Shelley), LeeAnne McConnell (Robert), and Zane Christensen (Heidi); twenty-two grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren.

Grant learned to work early in life, milking cows before and after school, and completing his schoolwork before it got dark. He served a Spanish-American mission for the LDS church, returning home with several Spanish songs he shared with his family over the years, and a recipe for enchiladas that is a family favorite. After returning from his mission he hitchhiked to St. George to begin his education at Dixie College. Only there a short time, he returned home when the Korean War began to join the Air Force. He was kept state-side in Sacramento, California where he worked in teletype maintenance and played on the Air Force basketball team up and down the state. It was there he met the one woman he would always love, Jeanne Marie Steinagel. They married on May 4, 1953, in the Salt Lake Temple.

Following the war, Grant finished his prerequisites at Dixie College, playing basketball, football and competing in some track. He escorted the homecoming queen, singing I’ll Hold You in My Heart by Eddy Arnold. After attending BYU for a year he was accepted to Baylor College of Dentistry at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas in 1956.

Throughout his life he was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving with the youth organizations, as counselor in two bishoprics, on the Stake High Council, and as a faithful home teacher. He was very much a family man and always put his family first. He planned yearly get togethers at Granita Park, which his children attended enthusiastically for twenty years, providing a place where cousins and family were able to grow up as friends. Grant was a practicing dentist until he turned 80 years of age. In his dental practice he never charged family, including brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, or children and grandchildren, for dental work, and often would do needed work in trade for those unable to afford it.

Grant loved horses and owned a number of them over the years. He had a passion for the study of geology, mining, and the past, loved hunting arrowheads when it was still legal, hunting in the fall, and his garden. Retiring from his dental practice at eighty years of age, he suffered a series of mini-strokes, diabetes and prostate cancer that made life challenging. Even then his attitude was always positive and his first questions on meeting were always about the welfare of family members.

There will be a viewing on Sunday, November 16, 2014 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm and the funeral will be held on Monday, November 17, 2014 at 11:00 am with a prior viewing from 9:45 am to 10:45 am, all to be held at the Forest Bend Chapel located at 7784 So. Highland Drive, Cottonwood Heights, Utah.